Whirlpool:Guardian Angel
by MangaMan250
Summary: Naruto lives his life loyal to Konoha but what happens when he and his close friends are betrayed?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

**Chapter 1: Hatred of the DemonBrat.  
**

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It was night time in the village of Konoha, like usual it was quiet, except for the murmuring in bars and home coming ninja from missions from faraway lands, the village was at ease – and was generally relaxed especially at this time of day, despite what most thought night time didn't mean an increased chance of an attack on a village, no quite the opposite, the dark didn't allow as much co-ordination and the people of Konoha knew this which left there nights generally uneventful.

A young boy sat on a swing looking at the academy he'd hopefully one day attend, he was around seven years old, blonde – with sparkling blue eyes and whisker like marks decorated his face, he wore an orange jumpsuit that made him stand out like a sore thumb, but it was all he had.

He stared towards the large brown double doors of the academy, he had trained all his life so far to become the best he could be, he'd taken scrolls from the library despite being insulted as he did, he'd learnt to take the insults – it was his fault and he deserved them, the villagers were merely helping him to atone. He understood that after a few years.

After he had mastered lower levels of jutsu and scrolls he proceeded to dig deeper into the knowledge base of Konoha's library, the more he practiced the better he became and he lusted for harder techniques, until he stumbled on a part of the library that was particularly well guarded and held a sign above it saying 'Do Not Enter.'

He recalled the day he weaved in and out of bookcases avoiding detection from ANBU level ninja, whatever they were protecting had to help make him strong, or it wouldn't have been so well guarded, and he was right, he had stumbled upon Fuinjutsu and what had surprised him more that the large scroll he had found had the name 'Uzumaki' on it so he decided to take it and replace it with a blank scroll also reading 'Uzumaki'

He was shook out of his thoughts when he heard that people were starting to leave the bars of Konoha a man was glaring at him and Naruto did his best to hold a smile towards the man, as he walked past he snarled at the young blonde. " Brat."

Naruto stood from the swing noticing the man had dropped his wallet, he grabbed on to the sleeve of the man and tugged it gently "M-Mister, you dropped something." The man immediately turned on heel and his fist met Naruto's jaw as it sent him crashing it to the floor.

"S-Sorry…" he whimpered holding up the wallet for the man to take as he snatched it from the young blonde and walked away muttering something about how demons shouldn't be allowed to live in Konoha.

Naruto got up and sat back on the swing, out of the village it was the only place he liked to sit within the village centre, it was in the shade almost hidden by the tree and when he sat here he wasn't beaten as much as normal as people didn't really take as much notice of him.

Another man walked up to the boy and he immediately prepared for the worst. "Hey brat, get off that swing you're ruining it for everyone else – no one wants a swing that a demon has touched!" the man declared clearly angered by Naruto's very presence, he could only follow commands – sure he could kill the man easily and most who approached him but that wouldn't help him atone for being a demon.

"S-Sorry I didn't mean to ruin it…" he said weakly hoping that the man could forgive him, the man just turned and began to walk away "Oh wait I forgot to give you your goodbye present." Naruto's eyes widened with joy, a present for him? He'd never had a present before he didn't care what it was he'd be happy just to receive something.

The man's span and delivered a swift knee to Naruto's nose leaving him blood trickling down his lower face and he was on all fours, he tried not to make it look as if he could get up – that might scare the person or cause him to think that Naruto intended to fight.

"T-thank you." Naruto said, if the man considered this a 'present' he would be polite as possible like he tried to be with all the villagers. "Cocky brat!" the man growled before kicking the small boy in the ribs as he double over, the man walked away like he was perfectly innocent.

Naruto stood up, all in all beatings as little as that didn't really cause him any pain – sure they made him bleed, but he could take the pain without question, he decided he would only anger more villagers if he stayed outside any longer he walked down the main street, the fastest way to his rundown apartment when he saw a blonde girl with dazzling blue eyes had just witnessed the scene and had a look of horror on her face.

Naruto looked up at her and smiled "You're really pretty! I hope you have a good night!" He exclaimed, he had seen her a few times and she hadn't even insulted him that was quite the feat in Naruto's mind. The girl quickly shook from her horror and ran inside and slammed the door.  
'I guess she was too afraid to do anything to me.' He walked over to her door and pulled out some paper and an envelope.

He had done this many times to people and carried them around in case he needed them, he quickly written something down and sealed it in the envelope and pushed it through the girls letter box before leaving the scene towards his apartment with speed, he decided not to enjoy the walk in case he upset anyone else.

The blonde girl sitting on the stairs walked over the letter box that descended on to her welcome mat she ran over hurriedly to collect it and ran back over to the stairs to read it.

On the envelope it read 'I'm Sorry.'  
She opened it up to reveal a quickly written letter ' I didn't mean to scare you, I just wanted for you to have a happy night and to you know that you were pretty I heard someone say people liked hearing things like that but I guess It doesn't work if I say it. Sorry.'

She sighed; she really hadn't meant to run inside like that.

Naruto opened the door to his apartment, it was spotless, no mess in sight –though it was late he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep just yet and decided to hit the scrolls, Fuinjutsu really grabbed his curiosity because it was one of the things he couldn't just learn in a few hours, so far he had learnt how to store things or make them explode and then some basic sealing creating a trap that when activated a bag full of kunai would implode sending them flying off in different directions.

He was bored with the basics thought, and stepped it up a level for those that could be used in battle other than traps or exploding tags, he had to be strong so the he could become the Hokage and the village would finally accept him though It would also help him to understand the things in the Uzumaki scroll which was of a much higher level.

After a few hours of reading Naruto discovered he was no longer capable of taking in the information, and he was starting to feel drowsy, he walked into the large room like he did every night, it was painted a cold blue, and there was eerie light in there from the large window that had a wooden window sill allowing a full grown person to sit and look out.

Naruto stayed in this room rather than the other smaller room, he liked the other room more but decided it would be a waste if he chosen the smaller room as this one was a little larger, he sat on the window sill and stared out at Konoha, despite what the people had done to him time and time again he loved the village with all his heart.

He stared out admiring the structures of the town and from here he could even see a huge compound, with large beautiful trees and the main house was considered to be a mansion, he knew that it belonged to the Hyuuga clan, he looked around seeing several shops he recognised, most of them sadly didn't allow 'his kind' in their stores.

He spotted his favourite ramen stall Ichiraku's packing up for the night, he loved that place, the people treated him like a normal person, but he didn't go there often – people might try to hurt them or ruin their business if they found out they were talking to him, and he didn't wish that on anyone.

His eyes wandered the streets and he came to a flower store – he loved to admire the plants that were on display outside although he'd never been inside the store he knew he wouldn't be welcomed, especially since he had been chased away just for looking at the ones on display outside.

His eyes continued to walk the empty streets of the village as they now gazed at the proud Hokage tower, the building he one day hoped to be seated in behind the small wooden desk, wearing the robes of the Hokage proudly. Pictures of the previous Hokage's would be dotted around his office in respect for them and his head would be added to the mountain that commemorated the Hokages of the leaf village.

As if on cue to the thought his eyes looked to the Hokage monument, he stared at the fourth one the longest, or his father's – he'd knew of course that Minato Namikaze was his father, the resemblance was too much of a coincidence and only those who didn't want to believe it could tell him otherwise although he hadn't actually told anyone he was Minato's son, surely no one would believe him.

He looked to a building – the closest to the apartment, a man was laying bricks to a soon to be complete construction and despite the time was still working on, Naruto admired that and watched on as the man carefully tended to his trade, another man soon joined the builder and pointed at Naruto watching from the window.

Suddenly the man frowned at looked angry and the two began throwing bricks towards the him, the first three left large holes in the window – his favourite window that had already been broken many times, and the fourth brick shattered through the window and hit Naruto square on the forehead sending him crashing off the window sill and onto the floor afterwards he blacked out.

Well that was one way to get to sleep.

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**Authors Notes: The first three chapters will be relatively short, I find it's easier to keep the reader interested when dealing with things like character introductions, hopefully it wasn't too short. The chapters will get longer after the first introduction chapters.**

**Hope you enjoyed reading.**


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

**Chapter 2: The Loved Survivor  
**

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The compound in which the boy roamed was empty. Once full of life it often brought back haunting memories that he'd never escape, he was a smart boy, a prodigy and genius some said – they took pity on him and had sympathy insisting that it was unfortunate that the Uchiha were wiped out.

He knew a little better than the citizens of Konoha and how truly clueless they were sometimes amazed him, he kept himself distanced from everyone and wished they did the same, usually though packs of girls would follow him around making high pitched squealing noises that he just couldn't appreciate.

It irritated him sometimes, mostly he could ignore it but when they claimed to know about him or even care about him that really grinded on him, he'd never spoken to them and if he had it was only ever a few words that weren't exactly kind – no, they knew nothing about him or what had happened or they'd give him some damn space.

The Uchiha compound served that purpose he thought, the place was secluded, away from most of the other parts of the village, he was certain that it was probably under surveillance ever since the murmurs of a coup but even those had left when the clan was wiped out, it was a silent place, free from the life it once held.

Sasuke walked into his large house, his family held some power within the Uchiha clan, although he tended to send thoughts of his family to the back of his mind, especially those about his older brother, even now he still couldn't believe he did it – he didn't want to believe it and he could of sworn Itachi had tears in his eyes as he left the village for good.

The house he was in was decorated plainly, he hated the decorations of the house, they were cold and unforgiving, and only helped to increase the feeling of loneliness the place already emitted and in the living room of the house the Uchiha Fan was proudly painted on the wall taking up most of the wall, and in the middle of the room was a trap door leading to a place where plans were secretly made.

Sasuke went down there a lot, there was a tablet in the room that contained information on the Uchiha's bloodline ability – the Sharingan, and all of the different stages – he couldn't read it however as he didn't even possess the sharingan yet – so all that was available to him was the first stage – that the Sharingan usually awakens in a difficult battle pushing the person to their limits.

Sasuke was done wallowing in the past and decided to goto bed, to be honest the boy didn't really do much, usually he trained for all he was worth and stuck to a schedule of eating, sleeping, resting, training of different things as well as studying, and every once a week shopping was also on his agenda – mostly when resting he would take long walks around Konoha.

The raven haired boy awoke the next day, sitting upright in his bed he shifted the loose strands of hair out of his face, and continued to get dressed. Today was one of his rest days and surprisingly his least favourite of all the days in the week, the sun shone in through the windows, at least the weather was nice.

After getting dressed into his usual dark blue shirt and white shorts that were almost ¾ lengths he pulled on his boots and walked outside of the door and followed the path leading to the Uchiha compound he ducked under the 'do not cross' tape and continued up the path towards the outskirts of Konoha.

"Good morning Sasuke." Said a friendly female voice, he didn't mind this woman, they talked sometimes and she actually held a good conversation, most of the time a simple greeting was enough for each of them though.

"Good morning." He stated and continued his walk which was now taking route down a hill onto a patch of grassland the thing he dreaded appeared, it had pink hair and annoyed him faster than most.

"Good morning Sasuke-kun!" She exclaimed merrily to him "Would you like to do something together today?" she asked with high hopes. "I'd like to be alone, thanks." He stated walking straight past her towards his spot, he had woken late today at it was already past noon.  
'Good job it was a rest day after all.' He thought to himself.

Sakura merely left the scene, she'd try again tomorrow, Sasuke was always deep in thought and at least she respected when to leave him alone, Sasuke appreciated that even if he didn't show it.

He walked closer to his spot, it was almost like a small fishing spot, a small wooden pier that stretched into the centre of the small lake, Sasuke would sit here and look into the water at his reflection and think for hours, but today – today was different, apparently it wasn't his spot today.

Sitting in his spot was a blonde, a blonde that even know they haven't talked before – probably knew him better than anyone else, he knew pain which meant he understood Sasuke, deciding that he wouldn't give up on his spot so easily, and chances were that the blonde was there for the same reason as he was, he took a seat next to the blonde.

The blonde was taken from his thoughts as he looked up at the Uchiha, who had sat down next to him; he was staring into the flowing water just as he had.

"Good Morning, Uchiha-Sama." Naruto stated as he bowed his head a little, this caught Sasuke off guard to say the least, but also he felt a small anger rising in him, this boy new pain like he did, and the two had never even met before.

"Why did you call me that?" he stated, a coldness lingering in his voice, he had earned no such right to be given that title so why should it be bestowed upon him, if anything he was being mocked.

"W-Well … You are of a prestigious clan of Konoha; your worth is far beyond that of my own, correct respect and manners should be shown to some one of higher importance." The blonde explained with a weak smile on his face, he didn't know how the boy was going to react and if he was beaten then so be it.

"My worth is not higher than any other person – especially someone who knows the pain of solitude; you will not call me that again." He said almost as an order to the boy, Naruto didn't try to understand why he didn't appreciate his attempt of showing respect and complied with his wishes.

"Even if your worth is apparently not considered to be more than another person, it is certainly above that of a demon." The blonde said sadly looking into the water once more, almost not enjoying the sight of his reflection being there.

"Why is it that you are a demon? I don't understand." Sasuke said – to him the boy seemed normal enough, troubled, but normal in most ways – except for the whiskers on his cheeks, Sasuke saw his politeness and manners as a mask, his way of re-acting to the pain.

Naruto shook his head at the question and lifted his jacket to reveal a large seal across his stomach.  
He smiled weakly at the boy, he'd never shown anyone else – in fact he'd never talked to someone for this long before. "This is the seal for the Kyuubi, it was sealed in me when I was born and I became a demon."

Sasuke was puzzled he heard that the kyuubi was sealed away into a boy that would keep it at bay and stop it from attacking everyone, his brother Itachi seemed to have a respect for the small boy he talked about.

"Doesn't that mean that you're stopping it from becoming free? If it wasn't for you keeping it at bay it could attack and destroy Konoha." He said a little confused at why saving the village made the boy a demon.

"If I let him free I'd die." He smiled towards the boy, this smile made the raven haired boy shudder; it now felt the boy held even more of a burden than before.

"Even so, if he was freed he would destroy Konoha and go on a rampage causing a lot of deaths." The Uchiha stated. Naruto just shook his head "last time he was controlled by an Uchiha, and was tricked into attacking the village, then he was sealed inside of me."

"I see, so he isn't actually as bad as people make out? I can imagine you have a hatred for the Uchiha." If was anything Sasuke knew it was that revenge was a strong temptation those that cause harm to you must be harmed equally or worse.

"I do not have any hatred for the Uchiha, it was not the clan, and it was but one of the members… I do not know who that man was – so I cannot blame anyone. Besides it is not my place to hate, I am a tool – a weapon, the Jinchuuriki of the nine tailed fox – a possession of Konoha's." Sasuke was shocked but before he could answer the boy he heard the pack of girls coming down the hill.

"Sasuke-kun!" the majority of them squealed as the bounded down the hill towards them, they glared at the blonde, before becoming angry at the boy.  
"What are you doing here!" one shouted, "Get away from Sasuke-kun!" shouted another "Get out of here you demon!" a third called.

The blonde quickly got up and walked in front of the group "S-Sorry, sorry I was just telling Uchiha-Sama that I didn't know he liked to sit here, don't worry I will not come here again." He said sadly as he slowly walked away from the scene, the girls not even considering the apology as they rushed over to Sasuke.

Sasuke turned, he was pissed off at what he just witnessed, "Get the hell away from me." He said coldly to them, they were shocked by this "You are the people who are monsters! If any of you come anywhere near me again I will personally see to it that you are arrested for harassment." He said bluntly before pushing through the crowd, the girls were speechless.

"Oi!" he shouted to the blonde figure that was walking away "Meet me here next week, same time, and next time to do not mask your real self." He called to the boy, before walking back in the direction of the Uchiha compound.

For some reason he could see himself becoming friends with the boy, they were almost tied together, having similar troubles but very different lives, the way he was treated was a lot worse than that of anyone else – or that he'd witnessed, and all the boy did was try to be polite.

He entered his home with a head full of thoughts; he had a lot to talk about on his next rest day.

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**Author's Notes: Sasuke and Naruto will become friends in this one even before academy days so don't be surprised if he's OOC I don't like writing him in character really.**

**Anyway hoped you enjoyed reading.**


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Still don't own Naruto.

**Chapter 3: The Troubled Heir  
**

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The girl was in her families dojo, she knew she would be scolded if she was found out but she couldn't get the memory out of her mind, every time she thought of it she blushed, but it wasn't time for that now –she would become strong, she would protect, she would be respected, she would be feared, she would be accepted.

It was dark in the dojo but she could see perfectly fine thanks to her Byakugan, she knew she was strong – but she was weak in mental discipline in the sense she had little self-confidence, she would train so even at her weakest she was impeccably strong, the wooden target was sore from the multiple chakra burns she had graced it with.

She had been dancing for hours, soft, elegant strikes smashed against the wooden figure again and again as she twirled and span laying hand on it again and again, her hand were becoming numbingly sore and her chakra was becoming harder and harder to sustain but such things would not stop her, not after what happened all that time ago.

She remembered a bunch of men threatening her, they knew the secrets on how to obtain a byakugan, and the they would have it for themselves, as she was about to be cut by a kunai it was suddenly interrupted by an angered blonde, he had to be her age if not a little older, but he was definitely her age.

He swooped in and fought of the men by himself with ease, his taijutsu was something she hadn't seen used by anyone it was a different style to anything she had witnessed, although she could have probably dealt with the men herself she couldn't summon the will to do so – she was too afraid.

After the men were unconscious the boy loomed over her trembling form, he had a make shift mask on around the lower half his face there was a small white piece of cloth hiding his features and he was hooded, she saw the blonde locks of his fringe fall across his forehead, she had seen him around before but was never allowed to approach him.

"Sorry Hinata-sama." He said softly and placed her in the safety of her home grounds and quickly left the scene, she didn't even get the chance to thank him, that night she had told her father what had happened and who had saved her. He simply nodded at this and told her, that the boy believed himself to be a tool of Konoha, and in his mind the clans were of great importance.

Thoughts of the boy had filled her mind ever since, when she was outside of the Hyuuga compound she would look around for him – hoping she would be able to talk to him, she did see him a few times, but was let down by her confidence once again and couldn't find the power to confront him.

Then there was the second time she met him, it was etched into her mind, one of the saddest times of her life that she would never like to witness ever again, she was walking through Konoha at night, she didn't know the reason why – something implored her to do so an instinct or something along those lines, just a gut feeling.

She wandered the dark streets alone, it was nerve wracking for the girl even if the streets were peacefully quiet, she didn't know what she was looking for or even why she was out in the outskirts of the village, she came to a district where the academy was, the area seemed quite but there was something strange about the atmosphere.

She walked close to the academy when she heard weak coughs coming from an alley way she decided to wander in and saw him.

The boy that had saved her that day beaten and bruised across the face, his jacket unzipped open to reveal a seal sign across his stomach, a kunai embedded in the centre of it, blood had collected around the wound and was still dripping to the floor – the crimson liquid made Hinata's eyes widen as it was smeared across his stomach spelling the word 'Demon.' Across the top of his chest.

She wondered why he was stood there like that, when she realised his feet were not on the floor at all, he was a few feet of the ground in fact, a kunai embedded deep into each of his shoulders pinning him to the wall by them as blood dripped down the side of his stomach, his jacket had been parted to allow the blades to sink in cleanly to the boys skin.

Her eyes shook and she was trembling she let out a soft whimper at the sight and suddenly the boys head turned to look at her – his blue sparkling eyes she saw when he rescued her were no longer there. Pain inflicted, lifeless eyes stared at hers for a brief second she shuddered at the dull blue colour.

"Sorry Hinata-sama." He said weakly, when he wrenched his teeth together "you shouldn't have had to see this." He said softly through his teeth, and in one movement he jerked his lower arms upright gripping the kunai embedded through his shoulders and despite his whimpers of pain and hisses that escaped through his teeth he pulled the two of them out.

He fell to the floor limp before managing to use only his legs to pull himself to a standing position, his arms hung limp by the side of his body as he proceeded through the dark alley and was slowly walking away from her. She shook her head furiously and ran after him catching up to him quickly.

"W-Why!" She said stuttering only due to the sight of his pain "How did this happen!" she shrieked to the boy, she had never been so enraged in her life – she wanted to hunt down the people responsible and personally give them equal treatment. The blonde turned to her weakly – deciding this was a person he could drop his mask too after all.

"Not many people like me Hinata-chan, it's what I get for being a demon, that's all." He said a little cheerfulness in his voice. "What do you mean!" She cried out to him, she knew all about what was sealed inside him but she couldn't understand.

Back in the dojo she was striking the wooden figure harder and harder, chakras filling the room with a light blue glow as the wooden figures wounds were becoming deeper and deeper as her anger washed over her remembering the painful memories.

"Didn't you even fight back! Y-You're strong so ... why!" she questioned the blonde he looked at her with sad eyes "I didn't mean to upset you Hinata-chan, I ran into the alley hoping no one would see them do it, I wouldn't want people to think anything of it." He said to the girl.

"That's not what I asked! Did you even put up a fight!" She shrieked as loudly as her timid voice could allow even while shouting it sounded gentle and caring. The blonde shook his head  
"Why would I fight back?" the words hit her ears hard and she was too shocked to think before she said.

"They were trying to hurt you! You could have died!" she declared to the boy who again shook his head "They wouldn't kill me – I am a tool of Konoha after all Hinata-chan" he smiled "I am to be used as a weapon for Konoha after all – I will protect the people, I will protect the buildings, I will earn forgiveness, respect and friendship – I will become the Hokage and be accepted." He said with pride clear in his speech.

His speech was enough to fill Hinata with chills racing down her back, she trailed after him and walked by his side "You have to at least come with me to the Hyuuga compound to be treated… it's the least I could do after last time…" she said to the boy quietly for some reason she had found her stutter was gone around him, well for now anyway.

"So you knew it was me after all I guess I didn't do a very good job" he chuckled "I won't come back with you – I will be healed by tomorrow anyway." He stated before heading in the direction of his apartment, he turned to her seeing she was still following him and turned to her. "Thank you Hinata-sama, for everything… but please return to the Hyuuga compound." He said his tone almost begging her to comply – she just nodded and said a soft goodbye to the blonde.

She awoke from her thoughts too see the wooden figure horribly injured 'so much for being subtle and not being found out.' She thought to herself, she had that feeling again, she ran over to the dojo doors and threw them open closing them quietly behind her, and she escaped the Hyuuga compound and ran towards the centre of Konoha.

She came to the academy building, hoping to not see what she did the last time she came here on a night; instead she recognised three voices as the men who attacked her before, the jumped in front of her.

"Oh look we were right after all." One sneered "Looks like we'll be getting the Byakugan after all." Another mocked "It looks like that demon brat isn't around to save you either!" the third declared to her angrily.

This time she would beat them herself, her eyes flared with chakra and she activated her Byakugan, she took up stance into the Jyuuken and her hands started glowing with blue chakra, the men just laughed a one pulled out a tag she was confused at why they were laughing.

"Do you really think we'd try to fight a Byakugan without being prepared?" one shouted before throwing the tag at her landing on her forehead the tag suddenly activated and she lost her Byakugan. "That tag means you can't use Byakugan for a good five minutes, it was hard to create but we managed." He laughed.

Suddenly a figure dropped into the circle for men a chop to the back of the man's neck and he was unconscious the two other men lunged towards him and he moved at speed slamming a fist in each man's ribs making them double over, on all fours their heads looking down at the ground, he delivered two more chops each like the first and the three men were left unconscious.

He carefully pulled the tag from her head and torn it, the chakra flowed back to her eyes and she dispelled her Byakugan. "T-Thank you Naruto-kun." She said a blush appearing across her face.  
"Are you okay Hinata-chan? Did they hurt you at all?" she shook her head "I'm glad." The boy spoke softly.

Suddenly Hiashi appeared. "What is going on here?" He asked angered that his daughter had thrown her arms around the blonde, as well as the sight of three men being unconscious looking all too similar to those that attacked his daughter last time.

"Tou-san, N-Naruto-kun s-saved me again, those m-men had a tag that s-stopped my Byakugan." She explained pulling herself from Naruto who bowed his head "Hiashi-sama these men attacked Hinata-sama again and intended to get a Byakugan for their own, they used a chakra sealing tag to supress her Byakugan and were going to attack her when I arrived." Naruto said as politely as he could manage.

Hiashi just nodded "Thank you for saving my daughter Naruto." He stated, "though it appears as this wasn't the first time, I am grateful." Hinata walked to her father's side and Naruto turned on heel to walk home.

That night she lay in her bed, she had been saved again, next time she would be even stronger.

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**Authors Notes: This is the last of the introduction chapters so the next one will be longer, later throughout the story I figured the story will be similar to cannon up to the Chuunin exams, Similar being a keyword as there will most likely be a lot of changes.**

**Hope you enjoyed reading.**


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

**Chapter 4: Lonely No More.  
**

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The sun was beating down on the boy who was sat on a wooden pier, its rays heating him causing him to sweat more than he already was, he had never met someone like this before – sure he'd have meetings with the Hokage but here was told to drop his mask. That alone made him nervous.

Many of the meetings with the Hokage didn't go well in fact, he usually took the words in and immediately jumped to conclusions, he remembered one time the hokage had told him  
"That window of yours has been broken again, honestly, you don't deserve such things." Naruto immediately took it the wrong way.  
"Your right Hokage-sama, I will live in the forest from now on, someone more deserving shall be able to live in the apartment." He said in a stoic way as if following orders.

The hokage just rested his forehead against his palm and sent an ANBU member to collect him from the forest; Naruto was much too hard on himself for his liking and followed words spoken to him as if they in themselves were high classed missions.

Naruto shook from the memories, this meeting was important to him and he had to remain focused. He looked down at the water at his reflection, noticing that his hair was growing long again, but this time he liked the look, perhaps he would keep it, it reminded him more of his father's hairstyle but had a fuller fringe rather than loose hanging bangs.

Footsteps approached him and he figured who it would be. Sasuke was surprised he didn't expect Naruto to come early, he decided to make himself early – so it appeared both of them were excited for the meeting, although confusing and a little bizarre the raven haired boy enjoyed their last conversation and wanted to get to know the blonde better.

He trudged down the grassy hill and made his way down the wooden planks before reaching where Naruto was sat, and decided to join him in a seating position – his legs dangling from the wooden platform almost touching the water.

The blonde looked up at him and smiled "Good morning , oh by the way I didn't ask you what your name was before" the boys smile was reassuring he was so different with his guard dropped like this and in honesty Sasuke preferred it, not to keep the boy waiting he followed suit letting out a relieved sigh.

"Sasuke Uchiha, what's yours?" he smirked towards the blonde he had decided to drop the mask of his own if the blonde could do it so could he.  
"Uzumaki Naruto, you seem different today Sasuke" he noticed as the Uchiha perked up a little  
"Well since you dropped your mask I decided to do the same" he said his smirk still present.

"Oh…" the boy chuckled not knowing the boy had a mask up in the first place  
"Why do you need a mask Sasuke?" he asked a little curious of the reasons the raven haired boy may have, to be truthful he wanted to know more about Sasuke.  
"Well, so that people can't get close to me, if anything ever happened to them it would be just another person to lose." Sasuke said for some reason opening up was easy to the blonde he didn't even have to think about it.

The blonde cocked his head to the side showing he didn't understand "Have you lost people important to you before Sasuke?" he said his voice a little lower than before, the raven haired boy looked at him a little dumbfounded "You mean you don't know?" Naruto shook his head.  
"The village only tells me information I need to know…" he laughed weakly.

"Well…" Sasuke sighed "My older brother, Uchiha Itachi – slaughtered my clan and left only me alive, I lost so many people that day – I have no intentions of losing another." Naruto nodded, he understood it from Sasuke's point of view now, and he rested a hand on Sasuke's shoulder.

"I'm sorry to hear that, I probably shouldn't have asked." He said regretting bringing up painful memories for the boy but the raven haired boy shook it off, for some reason he appreciated that the blonde didn't know about it.  
"Usually people give me pity and fake sympathy and claim to know all about my suffering when all they like me for is my appearance." He stated with hints of his usual stoic tone.

"It must have been so hard… enduring something like that has made you truly strong, that's what I believe Sasuke." He said in a firm tone that backed up his statement, Sasuke smiled a genuine smile, he was right to arrange this meeting.

"Thank you Naruto, that means a lot – but what about you? What has it been like for you?" he was curious to know more about the boy, he knew he had the kyuubi sealed in him, but didn't know how such a thing was done or even if Naruto had any family or friends.

"Well, I never met my parents, they are both dead…" he said to the Uchiha "My father died during the sealing of the kyuubi and my mother died on the same day – though I don't know who she is or how she died." Sasuke nodded in understanding "S-So do you live in the orphanage?" he said seeing that place before it didn't look like a nice place to live at all.

Naruto shook his head "I wasn't allowed to live there, something about demons being bad for other children to be around" he chuckled at his own expense only for Sasuke to be surprised how the boy could laugh at something so horrible.

"Well where do you live then?" the Uchiha asked the blonde, he hadn't seen the boy around central Konoha.  
"I live in an apartment on the edge of Konoha; the area isn't very nice but its home… where do you live Sasuke? I haven't seen you around the town." He was curious about the other boy but didn't want to overload him with questions.

"I live in the Uchiha compound, it's huge and empty which makes it feel all the more lonely…" he sniggered a little at how open he was being "But I still consider it my home." He stated.  
"Do you live alone also Naruto?" who nodded at his question.

"I've always lived alone though so I guess it isn't as bad…but Sasuke, I may be out of line especially as I've never had anyone important in my life – or anyone at all for that matter, but I think if people would like to get close to you, you should let them even know there is a chance of loss the memories and good times people have with one another, would surely be worth it, just make sure your strong enough to protect your important people." The blonde said giving a speech to the boy.

Sasuke shuddered at that, chills washed down his spine like he had heard the speech of a man of infinite wisdom, how was it that this boy who'd never had anyone was able to perceive the situation after only just hearing about it, better than he had managed all in all those years.

"You might be right Naruto, but I won't drop my guard just yet – people will have to earn the right to be called one of my important people." Naruto nodded contently at his slight victory he wiped his forehead from the heat and winced at little as he was reminded of the bruise the brick had given him, deciding it was much too hot, he unzipped his jacket and let it lay behind him revealing a plain black shirt with the Uzumaki clan logo on it.

Sasuke's eyes widened at the sight on the boys arms, the was deep cut marks which Sasuke had presumed were a lot deeper at one point and he couldn't help but stare at them for a few seconds trying to figure out what had happened to the boy, he tore his eyes away in defeat.

"What happened to your arms Naruto?" he asked a little concerned for the blonde sat next to him.  
"Oh that…" he chuckled which Sasuke struggled to follow "Well some guys didn't really like me and pegged me up to a wall by my arms with kunai." Sasuke's eyes widened at the statement.

"Well what happened? Did the ANBU get them or something?" he asked now angered, Naruto shook his head like it was the most obvious thing in the world "Why would they do that?" again chuckling  
"If I don't come home with at least a few bruises I think that something bad has happened in the village, so I keep it as a good sign that everything is normal." Sasuke shook his head violently at this.

"You can't just let people do that to you! Don't you know how to fight?" he said outraged at the boys story "Of course I know how to fight, I have trained all my life, just the other day I fought a couple of ninja who tried to hurt Hinata-chan." He said causing disbelief to Sasuke.

"Hinata-chan? ... Anyway if you can fight then why don't you stand up for yourself?" it didn't make any sense to him at all it just wasn't right in his eyes. "Hinata-chan is the heir to the Hyuuga clan. I don't defend myself because… well why should I? If it helps people deal with their pain caused by that night, or me being around then let them do it… if I beat them up they'd just hate me more."  
He talked with compassion for those who had done horrible things to him.

"That still doesn't make it right, you should tell the Hokage." He stated, he didn't agree with Naruto's reasoning at all it still wasn't right. "He already knows, nothing was to be done about it, and ANBU would only intervene if it was life threatening." Naruto replied to the boy.

"Who helped you with your pain?" Sasuke asked making Naruto a little wide eyed "…No one…" the boy answered a little defeated "Then why should they get your help?" as much as Naruto thought he was doing the right thing apparently he was very wrong he let out a sigh  
"I never thought of it like that before. Do you care what happens to me Sasuke?" he asked the boy hesitated a little but decided to open up once more, but went along with it in the end.

He nodded to the blonde who sat before him. "Then I would like to be one of your important people, no one has every seemingly cared about what happened to me other than Hinata-chan." He said with a foxy grin labelled across his face.  
"Baka, you're already one of them – I haven't talked to anyone like this in ages." He said a small smirk present on his face.

The two of them continued to chat and get to know each other, the day seemed to stretch on forever, but it was okay by them, eventually though it started to become late and they made the mutual agreement it was time to leave the spot.

The two walked up the hill and were heading in the direction of the Uchiha compound still chatting, a lot more casually than earlier in the day; it was safe to say that they had become friends quickly after that. Naruto suddenly turned about to change direction when he was stopped by Sasuke.

"D-Do you live in that direction?" the Uchiha asked not really sure were his mind was going with this, but for some reason he didn't feel like being alone again. Naruto let out a sigh apparently feeling the same "Yeah, oh well at least I get to sleep in the spare room tonight" he grinned.

"Why don't you stay over at my house? It's not like there isn't enough room, in fact you could stay in any house you like, and they're all empty." Naruto was shocked, and on the inside so was Sasuke, he'd never invited anyone in to the Uchiha compound never mind offered them a house to stay in.

"R-Really?" Naruto said full of joy "Okay! I'll stay at your house…can we goto my apartment to grab a few things?" He said still grinning wildly at his new friends offer, he'd never stayed at somebody else's house he saw on movies and TV shows that friends stayed over at others houses sometimes.

The two walked through the city of Konoha getting a few odd looks for some people it was strange to see the prodigy Uchiha walking down the street casually with the demon brat. Though they reached the apartment without any sort of event. Naruto unlocked the door and allowed Sasuke to enter first.

"Well it sure is tidy in here" he said, he didn't expect it from how the building looked on the outside but Naruto just chuckled while Sasuke was looking around the average sized apartment, when he came to the room that Naruto normally slept in, the window was boarded up and he turned out and sat on the couch while he waited for Naruto to collect his things.

"What happened to the window in there Naruto?" he questioned "Oh someone through a brick at me!" he called back while rooting through his drawers. Sasuke just sighed when a few scrolls caught his eyes. "Naruto what are these scrolls?" He called to the boy in the spare room.

He decided to find out pulling on the Uzumaki one, seeing a lot of complex markings and he couldn't make sense of any it so he rolled it back up and tried a different scroll, this was on the 'Jutsu' section of the shelves, it was well organized and the particular scroll he had hold of was marked 'Fire – B rank' Sasuke smirked, and left it on the table.

Naruto came out of the room now carrying a black backpack he grinned at the Uchiha before seeing one of his scrolls left out on the table. "Sasuke? Did you get this scroll out?" he asked hoping someone hadn't been inside his apartment like they had before.

"Yeah, I was hoping I could borrow this, I don't know that many jutsu really." The boy stated being a little hard on himself for not knowing more, the blonde just smiled. "Of course you can borrow it; if you want I could show you help you with it." He then walked over to his collection of scrolls "Hmm…" he said thinking with finger against his chin.

He reached and took two Fuinjutsu scrolls that he had been studying lately, as well as a wind jutsu, he packed them into his bag and stood up ready to leave, Sasuke followed his lead and they both exited the apartment, Naruto locking the door before they left the area, again they were receiving strange looks and glares.

Two men came out of a dark alley and glared at Naruto, they stood in the middle of the path in the way of the two boys, and they stopped.  
"Well if it isn't the demon brat, and it looks like he's made a little friend. We'll have to do something about that won't we?" The two men began laughing at the two boys and one shoved Naruto to the floor.

Naruto looked up at Sasuke who was giving him a stern look, he remember the words that he said to him earlier, no one helped him, he wasn't going to stand for this any longer. Naruto stood up and brushed himself of.

"You better get the hell away from me before I kick you and your husband's ass." He said coldly, his glare was like ice piercing the eyes of his attacker. The men became laughing and one clicked his hand and neck showing he was about to get his own back for that comment Naruto had made.

"Fine." The blonde said in a stoic manner and in an instant the man who had pushed him down was clutching at his ribs in pain he was down on all fours and before he could recover a roundhouse met the side of his head sending him crashing into the alley he came from. The other man looked startled but charged at the young boy regardless.

The small blonde caught his fist and thrust his elbow into the bridge of the man's nose making him collapse and lose consciousness. Sasuke looked at him expecting him to talk, the blonde just let out a relieved sigh. "That felt good." He said chuckling which earned a smirk from the Uchiha, and the two set off to the Uchiha compound.

The arrived at the entrance and the two ducked under the 'Do not cross.' Tape and Naruto looked around he was impressed by the place to say the least.

"It's Huge!" he exclaimed looking around at all the buildings and structures "Hn, you get used to it." Said the modest raven haired boy, "Which house is yours Sasuke?" the blonde asked still looking around the compound. Sasuke pointed and began to walk – the blonde followed not wanting to get lost.

Sasuke slid open the door like he did everyday it wasn't anything out of the ordinary to him, but he couldn't help but chuckle at Naruto's reactions to the place, having him around certainly made it livelier, the two walked into Sasuke's house, there was a moment of silence as Naruto looked around.

"This is it." He stated he didn't really know what else to say "Whoa, this place is huge!" Naruto said still impressed by it all "Did you always live in this house Sasuke?" he asked only to get an answer in the form of a nod.

Sasuke walked into the living room and slumped down on the couch and turned on the TV he shouted for Naruto to 'come in already' as he'd been looking around the room a good five minutes, Naruto sat down on the couch and pulled something from his bag.

He looked at the Instant ramen with lust, he couldn't help but have one or two around this time of night "E-Erm Sasuke, do you mind?" he asked nervously he hoped it wasn't too impolite.  
"Eww! You like that flavour? It's like one of the worst!" Sasuke declared at Naruto's choice.

"What? This flavour is the best!" he said adamantly "You obviously don't know your ramen!" Sasuke retaliated; Naruto had heard enough this was one thing he could not accept.  
"My ramen knowledge is unrivalled! I, The Great Ramen Sage will not listen to such insults!" He announced which despite Sasuke's attempt – he even raised his hand to keep his mouth shut, he burst out into laughter at how ridiculous that sounded.

"Fine! I challenge you!" Sasuke shouted to the blonde running into the kitchen, Naruto followed at speed, sliding across the wooden floor as he tried to stop, he saw a huge cupboard in the room, and he guessed it was for storing all of the boy's food. The Uchiha then showed him a glimpse of paradise.

The large cupboard was filled with instant ramen of all different flavours, hell he even had more than Naruto did. "Are you going to stand there drooling all day or are we going to do this." He said competitively there's no way Sasuke was going to lose in his own home.

He pulled out his choices and Naruto screwed up his face "Why are you eating those ones? They are like the all of the worst flavours." He couldn't understand why anyone with so much choice would select those. "What? These are by far the best!"

The two boys ranted and argued about how the flavours they had chosen were the best, and how the other was obviously a complete amateur to eating ramen, before long they decided to have a showdown, the first to finish their five bowls would win.

The two boys were neck and neck, Naruto finished the first bowl faster than Sasuke, a split second the Uchiha followed to the second bowl, clearing it faster than Naruto who slurped at his bowl before moving on, again though Sasuke taken the victory over the third bowl, Naruto went into hyper speed and managed to win the fourth round.

The final bowl, the two were throwing the noodles down their throats as fast as humanly possible – or even a little beyond that, they finished the fifth bowl each declaring they had finished at the same time, both hands stretched up into the air. They looked at each other and fell silent.

Then they pointed their fingers at the other and started laughing at the other, collecting his breaths "Y-You've got most of those five bowls around your face!" Naruto said before he gave into the laughter once more "Y-You can't talk it's all over you!" the Uchiha stated as he too found himself laughing once more.

Wiping the tears from their eyes they let out a content sigh, and Sasuke led them into the living room and chose a movie to watch, they sat through it and when it was done it was getting late – they both agreed that it was time to call it a night, the two changed into their pyjamas before Sasuke showed Naruto to his room.

The room was plain white around the lower half of the room, and on the upper half was dark blue, much like the clothing Sasuke wore on the back wall was a medium size Uchiha fan decorating the wall proudly, on each side of the room was a single bed, one that looked unused for some time, the others was Sasuke's.

The two got into bed, they talked a while just laid in place, looking up towards the ceiling and upon questions they were interested in they'd turn their heads to look at one another, over the day they'd already began to know a lot about each other, and both were thankful that they had made a friend, deciding it was time to goto sleep, the rolled on their sides facing the other.

As Sasuke closed his eyes they suddenly jumped open again, he could have sworn he saw Itachi laid there, a peaceful smile on his face which reminded of him of when the two shared the room when they were younger, he shook it off and closed his eyes letting sleep wash over him.

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**Authors notes: Hoped you enjoyed the story, this one was a longer than the others and the next chapter will probably be even longer, I didn't really wanna stretch this one out as much as long as I thought it would end up being.**

**Hope you enjoyed reading. Don't be shy and review – even if it's short :)**  
**Thank you to the people have Reviewed, Favorited and added to Alerts.**


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Do not own Naruto.

**Chapter 5: Training begins.  
**

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The two boys awoke around the same time of 'Six thirty' thanks to Sasuke's trusty alarm clock emitting a loud beeping noise causing the raven haired boy to slam his fist down on to it like he always did, the two of them got up and got dressed into their everyday clothes.

"Naruto, I have to train today…" Sasuke said implying that Naruto would have to go home or something like that; instead he was met with a huge grin "Great! I have to as well; maybe I can help with that fire jutsu scroll you borrowed." Sasuke smirked at this, although he was a fast learner and usually picked up the technique to a level that could be honed at later date, having someone to help would be nice.

Naruto pulled some books from his bag, they were thick and all seemed to be about chakra control, this made Sasuke raise an eyebrow in curiosity "What are those for Naruto?" he asked, he thought the blonde said he was going to be training, not studying. "This is my training." He said looking down at the few books he had taken.

"How is that training? Isn't that studying?" he asked surely Naruto knew the difference, but he shook his head "Although I guess it is learning information it also helps teach chakra control with different exercises to do and stuff, there's a few really cool ones in here that I can't wait to try." He said grinning ear to ear.

"Oh, I've never tried anything like that before…" he said hoping Naruto would offer to let him do some of those exercises "You'll probably suck at them." Naruto said and laughed at how his words came out "I mean you have a lot of chakra like I do, so they'll be hard at first, don't expect to just get it straight away." Sasuke gave the boy a funny look, how hard could it be?

The two walked over to Sasuke's training ground led by Sasuke, it was within the compound, so fortunately they wouldn't be disturbed by anyone, it was a large open field with trees around it, much like the normal squad training grounds around Konoha.

Naruto slumped down next to a tree finding that sitting in the shade was a nice temperature, he pulled out the scroll and passed it to Sasuke, who then hurriedly went to study it – he always did like fire Jutsu, the blonde pulled out his books and began to immerse himself in them, he had always found these kind of books interesting – they weren't like text books written for the fact of teaching people, but more like diaries and accounts made by someone who was aiming to improve their chakra control.

After a few hours Sasuke was starting to get the technique's basics and was able to use it, although it wasn't very long lasting after he had released it from his mouth and he hadn't managed to fire off the other two balls of fire that were meant to accompany the first. Naruto had picked up on his flaws while reading his book.

It seemed to Naruto that Sasuke was releasing far too much chakra into the first blast, making it unstable which made it fizzle out of existence faster than normal, and the burst of chakra – more than Sasuke actually thought he was using meant he couldn't repeat the steps and fire out the other two fireballs. Then the idea popped into Naruto's head.

"Oi, Sasuke, why don't you try this chakra control exercise I'm about to start?" he said, Sasuke raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "Why would I need to do chakra control? I'm trying to learn this jutsu." He stated not seeing how that would help. Naruto went on to explain to Sasuke why he couldn't perform the technique correctly, surprisingly he explained it all pretty well and Sasuke agreed to try this exercise.

"So what exactly are we going to be doing?" he'd never done chakra control exercises before and really didn't know what to expect.  
"Well…uh, apparently we're going to be walking up trees without using our hands and placing chakra to our feet." Sasuke looked at the blonde in disbelief until he shown him the book, that did in fact show someone walking up a tree quite easily.

The blonde went over to the nearest tree, and applied chakra to his feet, when he felt he had the balance of chakra right a blue glow appeared at his feet and he made his first step onto the tree, he took a few more steps slowly, until he was fully of the ground and continued to walk, he managed to get twelve steps before falling, and to show his progress he marked the tree with a kunai – just as the book instructed.

Sasuke tried mimicking the boy's actions and took his first step, a small indent was made on the tree and he lowered the amount of chakra around his feet, he took a few more cautious steps and managed to get eight steps up the tree and proceeded to mark it just as Naruto did.

"Wow Sasuke! That's really good since you've never done anything with chakra control before" the boy said flashing a foxy grin at the boy, Sasuke was somewhat relieved at that, at first he thought that he had poor control as he was not able to match Naruto's progress but it turned out Naruto had been learning the theory of chakra control – but this was his first time putting it into practice.

The two looked at each other with determined eyes, and immediately set to running up the tree – chakra infused to their feet, this continued for hours on end each time getting closer and closer to the top, Naruto was in the lead throughout the tree walking and finished three turns before Sasuke,  
who mumbled something about Naruto cheating as he had read the books.

After they'd finished they looked into the book to see that water walking was the next exercise and apparently could be done immediately after tree walking with some ease, however the full control would have to be practiced, the boys however decided not to push their luck they had already used a hell of a lot of chakra just getting up the tree, they decided to have a quick spar and ended training for the day – it was surprising how fast 8pm had come around.

The two walked through the streets of the Uchiha compound, and Sasuke made the turn at a corner leading to his house, and was confused when Naruto stopped, he had expected him to follow for some reason, then noticed the blonde has his black backpack on his bag and figured he was going to leave.

"Well I guess I should get going, thanks for everything Sasuke…" he said with a sad smile "Maybe we can train together more often?" he said with high hopes, something went off in Sasuke's mind and he realised that he was going to be alone again – with Naruto there the whole compound seemed lively again and it settling back to the desolate place it was before would probably crush him with a feeling of solitude.

"Sasuke?" the blonde inquired a little worried at the boy staring into space, the raven haired boy quickly shook his head, agreeing with his idea in his head, he could always ask.  
"N-Naruto…" he asked with certain nervousness "Would you like to live at my house?" he said rubbing the back of his neck unknowingly and looking away from the blonde.

Naruto's eyes widened in shock and he wasn't sure he heard him right "What…?" he said complete shock evident on his face "…Well if you want too – it's pretty horrible here when no one else is around." He said, Naruto had heard him right and his eyes lit up with joy he wouldn't have to live alone anymore and in the back of his mind he really didn't want to leave.

"I'd love too! It'd beat sitting in the apartment alone all the time!" He declared "I'll have to go get my stuff though." He said speaking quickly with his excitement getting the better of him, a wave of relief washed over Sasuke, he wouldn't be alone again after all.

"Well let's go get it then!" he exclaimed but Naruto shook his head "It's okay Sasuke I can get it, I'll just seal it into a scroll" he gave a triumphant grin at being able to seal things away, not many people his age knew how to do it, Sasuke gave a nod and they said their goodbyes, Sasuke heading to his house slowly and Naruto racing towards the apartment for the last time.

Naruto jumped from rooftop to rooftop ignoring all of the glares he was getting, at this moment in time he really couldn't care less what they thought of him, and he'd beat them down if they trying to slow him down, the look on his face said 'don't mess with me' for once in his life.

He soon met with the apartment building and instead of using the stairs he decided to test his new ability, and applying chakra to his feet he ran straight up the wall of the building leaving a few people looking on in shock as he reached the front door. Before he could unlock it and bust it open to hurriedly collect his things, he was met by a familiar blonde girl with a letter in hand, half way through posting it through his door.

They looked at each other awkwardly for a little while, until Naruto looked away "H-Hi…" he stuttered out to the girl, he remembered that she had ran inside last time he spoke to her, she smiled at the boy "Hi! My name is Ino" she chirped giving him some relief that she wasn't going to run away.

"I got your letter, I didn't mean to run inside but I was embarrassed at what you said." She said with a light blush forming over her cheeks as she remembered his words, Naruto grinned at that and unlocked the door, offering for her to come in, she shook her head softly "Daddy thinks I'm coming home from a friend's house, he'll expect me to be back." Those words although not meaning much to Ino struck Naruto in a way "Thank you." Was all he could say, before the girl ran off a little confused. Naruto smiled, someone had paid him a visit with a letter even if it meant her getting in trouble, and he sighed and hoped that she managed to get away with it.

Naruto shook off the encounter and made his way into sealing things, not before reading his letter of course, which was similar to his own – it was short and was a simple apology for running inside, unlike his though it said something about her attending the academy and hoped that he did too – as she wouldn't be able to do this again, especially if she was caught.

After an hour and a half Naruto was finished, looking around the room he noticed that he almost missed something very important, he ran over to it and slipped the photo into his bag, before running off towards the Uchiha compound.

Sasuke was waiting patiently – but when waiting for something you want, time usually liked to slow down, and while watching TV Sasuke found himself eyeing the clock wondering if the blonde was even coming back, but tried to concentrate on the TV. He heard a knock, and his hopes were high, no one really knocked on his door and if they did it was usually only ANBU.

Sasuke slid open the door and was happy to see the blonde had come back after all, he was now carrying a large scroll as well the black backpack he had before, Sasuke stepped out of the way to allow him to come In the blonde set his things down and asked if he could have a proper look around the house.

While he was looking around Sasuke decided to get his things out so Naruto could put them away when he was done, he pulled a photo frame out from the bag and was a little surprised at who the photo was of, he set it aside and decided he'd ask about it when Naruto came back,  
"Naruto, how do I get the stuff out of the scroll?" He called to the blonde.  
"Just push some chakra into it!" he heard as the blonde shouted back.

He did as instructed and the items started poofing back out of the scroll, most of it was Ninja equipment, such as a box filled with Kunai, another for shuriken and a third for senbon- Sasuke hadn't known that Naruto could use them, apparently people had to know a lot about the body to use Senbon effectively. He moved on to the next seal, after he placed chakra into a huge box around the size of a small cabinet popped out, filled with curiosity he decided to look inside.

'That explains it.' He thought to himself, the book was filled with books that were thrown in quickly, they were all about different subjects like the human body, how to create basic medicines, a few unopened medical jutsu books – although the books discussing the theory behind med-ninjutsu had been raided for information like many of the other books – all of them seemed to be about ninjas in one way or another.

Sasuke sighed, he wondered how much the blonde he really knew, if he'd read all these that had bent corners and showed signs of wear then he must of knew _a lot_. Sasuke pushed the box aside and continued unsealing, the next things were pretty ordinary – clothing, the scrolls that he had previously examined when he found the fire jutsu scroll, then it was down to things such as movies, board games such as shogi and then spare scrolls for storing, the final item caught Sasuke's eye though.

It was a box saying 'Fuinjutsu', he had heard about it and knew it was based on seals, he took a look inside and found the box was rather well organized into different sections, one of the sections had explosive tags, another had plain paper –although it didn't look ordinary, and a third and fourth sections had the words 'practice versions' labelling them. Yet another thing that Sasuke needed to ask about.

Naruto trudged into the room, looking at all his stuff spread out "Oh you managed to get it all out then" he smiled, he put quite a lot of stuff in that scroll and thought he would have to come in to help. Sasuke just nodded then grabbed the picture looking at it then back to Naruto.  
"Naruto? Why do you have a picture of the Yondaime Hokage?" out of all the things Naruto had brought it was the one thing he hoped the boy didn't question, he decided to try his hand at a little lie. "Well because he's such a great ninja and all – I want to be just like him!" he said while he was itching the back of his head.

Sasuke didn't buy it and shook his head and sighed "Are you going to tell me the real reason now?" it was Naruto's turn to sigh "Promise you won't tell?" he asked in a more serious tone, the Uchiha nodded "I promise." He said looking back at the blonde wanting to know more than ever.  
"Well…He's my father…" Naruto expected Sasuke to burst out laughing or to call him a liar.

"Huh." Sasuke said a little blandly – in his mind he was scolding himself "I'm surprised i didn't realise earlier." He held the photo out in the air and looked at the two, comparing them with another "You look a just like him, well except your hair is a little longer and the whisker marks of course" he chuckled.

Naruto relaxed 'so he believed me after all' he thought to himself happy that someone had recognized him as the son of the Yondaime Hokage, Sasuke decided not to pry any more on the subject and asked about the box labelled 'Fuinjutsu'.

Naruto explained to him that it was based around seals and one day he had snuck into a guarded part of the library finding scrolls about it – it was something he had wanted to learn since his dad apparently was really good at it, he figured he'd try it too, but explained so far he wasn't good at it as it took a great deal of time to make any progress especially as a lot of it was so complex – especially for a seven year old.

The two unpacked Naruto's things and then slumped down on the couch letting out a relieved sigh that they were finally done for the day.  
"Sasuke. How could you?" the blonde suddenly cried out remembering something,  
"What do you mean how could I!" He defended, not knowing what the blonde was going on about.

"You missed the most important seal!" He shouted merrily "I did?" he said "I was sure I got them all – anyway what is so important about the last seal?" Naruto was already on his knees unsealing it and then poof a large box appeared much like the one filled with books.

Sasuke peaked in to see the contents, and his eyes lit up. Ramen! "Let us add it to the collection." He said in a weird cultist kind of manner, Naruto lifted the box and complied they walked like two priests preparing for a ceremony, he placed the box on the side board and the two bowed, before carefully placing the ramen away into the cupboard, if anyone had seen such a ritual they would of probably offered the two boys to get mental health care.

"It is complete." Naruto stated as the two chuckled and then and Naruto picked up the box, there was two metal tins at the bottom that Sasuke had not seen previously.  
"What's in those?" he asked, Naruto just grinned and went into the living room with the metal tins, Sasuke hot on his tail.

Naruto opened the first tin to reveal an almost endless supply of 'Ichiraku Ramen Coupons' which earned a delighted look from Sasuke and then the other tin he opened contained a heck of a lot of money.

"How much is in there?" Sasuke said surprised that the boy had so much, the blonde raised his hand to his chin and stroked it "Hmmm, around one hundred and fifty thousand." Sasuke chuckled  
"Great let's put it with the rest, we can share our money" he smiled towards the blonde who looked a little cautious of how much 'the rest' was "What you think I'd be the last member of a prestigious clan and not be filthy rich?" the raven haired boy laughed. Now that he thought about it that did make sense and followed Sasuke to place his money with the rest of it.

Before calling it a day the two mapped out a new intense schedule for training, by the time they got to the academy they were going to be the best of the best, and then some. After it was decided, they went to sleep.

Monday mornings would consist of Taijutsu and weapon practice, in the afternoon they would spar with each other in a manner similar to a fight to the death, causing each other to be used to a full-fledged fight with an enemy ninja, and usually they would come away with cuts and bruises and a few wooden senbon lodged in the less dangerous areas thanks to Naruto's books.

Tuesday morning would consist of theory of chakra control – which they could both consider a weakness, although it had already improved dramatically since the completion of the tree walking exercise and in the afternoon they would put the theory into practice with different exercises, but the two started with the water walking.

Wednesday would consist of brutal physical exercise, they weren't sure how to train in this area until the Hokage had suggested a master of taijutsu help them with their training plan, the man was definitely a 'character' alright when he appeared he voiced things such as 'The Fires Of Youth are burning in these two at such a young age! I will gladly add fuel to the already blazing flames!" although he seemed silly, his training was a destroyer of those that were weak hearted and it was quickly showing results on Mondays. Especially when they took of their weights.

Thursday was the opposite of Wednesday in a way, as the two spent the day learning new techniques and things they were generally interested – Sasuke found himself digging into the library of books Naruto brought with him nearly every Thursday, and the scrolls he brought with him were also used regularly by the two. On the afternoons the two decided it would be a good idea to learn healing jutsu, even if it was only to a minor level, at least they could deal with the cuts and bruises from their Monday afternoon sparring session.

Fridays were used for Element Manipulation practice, they each found out their chakra affinity and Sasuke was surprised when his was lightning – not fire like he thought it would be, the two spent the mornings training their affinity, reading from scrolls on how to advance their progress, and the afternoons were spent trying to learn a second manipulation – Sasuke chose fire and Naruto chose water.

Saturday was what they named 'Exhaustion Training' in basic terms they would fight one another until they could no longer move, either from the pain that had been caused or the sheer exhaustion – after many times it being the latter, the branded it exhaustion training, they would use everything they had learned to try and beat the other – using all the chakra they had at their disposal – which helped their chakra stamina – and helped to raise their reserves, but also it trained pretty much everything they were learning – except for their studies and elemental manipulation but the experience of using the things in 'battle' wouldn't exactly harm the wannabe ninjas.

Among training like this the two would spend the rest of the time that they had free to relax and enjoy themselves, generally this would consist of eating, watching TV or games of shogi – which they found really tested them in the thinking department sometimes, unfortunately for Sasuke one day he accidently called Naruto 'Nii-san.' The raven haired boy expected to be ridiculed but was shocked when the blonde embraced it and the two ended up calling each other by it on a regular basis.

This would be how they spent their time up until they joined the academy; they'd be the strongest for sure.

* * *

**Authors Notes: Still straying away from the academy for now, I wanted to build more of a background to the story before hand – the next chapter will be the same but from someone else's life building up to the academy.**

**Hope you enjoyed reading. Drop a Review, Favourite and Alert, all are appreciated.  
Thank you to all those who have already written a Review, added to favourites and Alerts.**


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

**Chapter 6: A Perfect Schedule  
**

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Sweat dripped from the girl, it twirled down her cheeks after dropping from her soaking hair, she was in the midst of one of her insane training sessions that took place every day, since her last meeting with Naruto, she had trained harder than ever before and even managed to gain Hiashi's respect, he even stopped by every now and again to guide her – a huge improvement from before.

Hinata had found that her chakra affinity was water, and although she loved water jutsu, it was elegant and graceful and matched her own personality in ways, it could be timid and still but change dramatically when stirred in some way. Even with her affinity being water and her likeliness for the element she found herself studying Earth jutsu and manipulation, it made her feel strong and empowered and it's defensive abilities were re-assuring.

The young Hyuuga girl had let her hair grow long, rather than let it grow – she simply didn't feel it was of great importance that it was cut back, and she also liked the new look – trimming her fringe to make sure it was not an inconvenience, a year had passed since Naruto had rescued her, and so far she had lived up to her promise of growing stronger.

Every day she would wake at 6am and assign herself exactly thirty minutes to go about her morning activities, as soon as the thirty minutes was up though, she would go back into training mode, and have intense session right up until 12pm where she would allow her a full hour, thirty minutes for food and an extra thirty minutes to rest from the morning workout, then she would go about what was assigned to her on her schedule until 6pm when she would need to eat again assigning another hour.

However instead of allowing herself to call it a day at that time she would train from 7pm until 10pm for a third session, this allowed her to learn even more – but she mostly used this time for studies so that she would count it as her body resting, when it reached 10pm she immediately went to sleep, allowing exactly the minimum of eight hours sleep needed and then she would repeat the cycle until Saturday, where she would goto sleep at 10pm like usual but would sleep until she woke up naturally on the Sunday and would use the day to relax and rest – she needed this day to survive her own crazed training routine.

She'd finally finished for the day and without wasting time she slumped down into her bed and thoughts of a certain blonde filled her dreams; she drifted away at exactly 10pm – just like every night.

In the morning she awoke at six, just as her schedule told her too, and she rushed into the shower before getting dressed and heading downstairs to eat, she wiped her face clean as she left through the front door. Six Thirty.

She opened the large double doors and went into the dojo, she bowed to her sparring partner – her older cousin Neji who she had lately been able to match with her own use of the Byakugan and Jyuuken, and this was a shock to Neji but already being a genin he couldn't train as much as she could, especially with Gai who had decided when they first taking missions, that at the end of the year they would have a ridiculous amount of missions to boast about.

So far in just a year Neji had done around 40D rank – those were usually completed lightning quick thanks to Gai's slave driving and around 20 C rank, these took a lot longer and sometimes had some hazards like enemy ninja, although Neji enjoyed the challenge as much as his other team mates, In a way he was happy with Hinata's progress he had to hold back less and less, meaning that the training now also benefited him as much as it did her.

Hinata was panting and rubbing at the sides of palms, they had sparred for five and a half hours; it was fair to say she was tired, the use of chakra like that over the last year had built upon her already fair sized chakra reserves and improved her stamina a great deal, now it was 12pm, exactly as schedule planned, she decided to get lunch before awarding herself with a well-deserved half hour rest.

The last of her relaxing minutes had come by and it was soon to be 1pm, she peeled herself from the comfortable couch and headed towards a quiet lake she had stumbled upon in the Hyuuga compound and to her delight the place was almost always empty – meaning it was free for her to claim it as a training spot. She stood on the surface of the water; it acted almost like solid ground, as she twirled through poses of the Jyuuken as a quick warm up before setting in to main training.

She focused her chakra into the water, and slowly raised her hands upwards, at first only droplets came, then small whips of water flowed to her hands, she then when through the poses of Jyuuken again, this time with deadly concentration making sure not to lose the water, when she first started this training the water would be difficult to control and would often splash back to where It came after a couple of seconds, Hinata was proud of how far she had come.

The water around her followed her actions as she twirled and span, it even followed the bold movements such as the strikes that Hinata would sometimes throw in to increase the difficulty in order to stay focused, If she had her way she would spend much longer doing this sort of training, out of all of the things she had scheduled this one had to be one of her favourites –she found it calming being around the water, and was able to relax through the slow motions of the Jyuuken style.

She let out a defeated sigh as the alarm clock she brought with her had sounded, it was already 6pm, she hurriedly made her way back to her home and prepared what had become her favourite meal, it always made her feel funny when she ate it in a way it made her feel close to the blonde that she admired so much, in fact that was the reason she at first forced herself to like it, a few weeks before her training started she found herself stalking the blonde – no not stalking, she was merely looking him out for him, a lot of the time, learning what he liked and what he disliked from a distance, the next time she saw him at the academy she would make the perfect impression.

The whistle of kettle snapped her away from her thoughts and she poured the water into the bowl, unlike the blonde that often ate when he was at the park with Sasuke, she didn't eat the instant ramen, and learnt how to make it all herself from scratch – another part of her perfect plan to win over the blonde, she could only hope for the days to go faster so that she could see him at the academy.

Sometimes she had nasty thoughts about other girls hanging around him, she saw that blonde give him a letter and was not best pleased to say the least, but she knew he barely left the Uchiha compound as the two boys had a torturous training scheme, which was when she decided to match them, if her love could do it so could she, she would become strong as well.

She ate up the ramen quickly – as he would , she thought, devouring a few bowls herself with her training she had been eating more at meal times but it didn't really matter she burnt off the access easily – but she knew that, or she would cut back, she couldn't get out of shape or Naruto may not like the way she looked – on the mornings she would spend the most of her thirty minutes looking over her figure and the way she looked analysing it for faults that he may not like, but stopped doing such things when she remembered that Naruto was not like that, another one of the endless reasons she adored the boy.

She relaxed on the couch enjoying her thoughts as well as the comfort provided by the seat as she was slumped down on it in a non-Hyuuga kind of fashion, though unlike most Hyuuga, Hinata really didn't see why they thought so highly of themselves – sure they had the Byakugan and were adapt fighters but other than that they were people just like everyone else, she didn't think herself to be high and mighty like some of the members, her cousin Neji seemed to have a lot of symptoms of that disease.

It was now 7pm, relax time was sadly over, but instead of making her way across to some training ground she decided she'd do her studies right here, Hiashi was away and she was the only one in the house anyway, so she wouldn't be disturbed and the couch had made her feel all too comfortable to suddenly abandon it. That and she often had breaks in between her studies – there was only so much information she could take in before needing a short rest or she would end up just loosing focus, during these breaks she allowed her thoughts to swarm her head, it was a good thing she set alarms for her breaks or she would no doubt lose track of time.

She sighed and went back to her studies, time soon flown by and it was 10pm, she hurried upstairs and jumped into bed not wanting to miss any of her precious eight hours sleep, she needed the energy for the next day, being tired or sleepy could really give her willpower a hard time, the memory of when Naruto saved her, and she managed to steal a hug from him flooded her mind and she soon found herself in a comfortable sleep.

When she woke up, she found herself very well rested for some reason, and she hadn't even heard her alarm go off, she face palmed immediately – today was Sunday, she must of got so wrapped up in her training that she forgot what day yesterday was, she yawned and stretched her arms up into the air, and laid back down enjoying the warmth for a little while longer, she didn't get to lay in bed like this any other day so on the Sunday she decided that she would savour it.

She stared up at the ceiling as she turned slightly in her thick blankets, thoughts of going to the academy rushed into her mind, she imagined her and Naruto sitting on one of the three people desks together, and on the end was Sasuke, Naruto was in the middle – she wasn't obsessive you know, although it could seem that way the way she thought about him it wasn't like that at all she just wanted to be with him so much that sometimes it clouded her thoughts a little.

Going back to her day dream she imagined her and Naruto training with one another, helping each other to grow strong, and one day she'd invite him to study with her and she'd take the chance to get close to him a little bit more, then she would make him her home made ramen which he would surely love, then he would fall for her and everything would be perfect.

She let out a content sigh and hoped that when they really went to the academy even a little of that daydream happened, to be honest she would be overjoyed if he were to sit next to her, that would at least give her chance to talk to him – sometimes that was all she really wanted, like him she felt lonely a lot of the time, even knowing she was surrounded by her clan members she didn't really talk to anyone and they held a dislike to her for her timid nature.

She sighed again, this one not so happy, she pulled back the covers and slid out of the large bed, she had figured it was time she had a shower, then she shook her head and decided to treat herself to a nice hot bath, as the water ran to fill up the tub she went downstairs to make some breakfast, instead of eating it down there she brought it up, and entered the bathroom to see a now filled bath – well filled to the level she desired anyway.

She lay there in her bath, feeling a few stings from her sparring session with her cousin yesterday, but that was not enough to spoil the moment as they soon faded, she ate slowly, simply taking her time and enjoying herself – something that she felt she didn't really get a chance to do anymore, but the sacrifice had shown to be worth it seeing how much stronger she was becoming, besides this was her day to do all of that kind of stuff, and it made her enjoy it so much more.

She got out of the bath a good forty minutes later, she didn't check the time – if anything on her Sundays she hated being time conscious like she was the rest of the days of the week, this was her day were nothing was to be planned, she would just do as she pleased, and today she decided that she would go into Konoha and buy some new clothes and maybe relax at one of the parks – or have a wander around the outskirts of Konoha, they were generally more scenic, well if you wanted a nature theme instead of that of a busy tourist village kind of theme.

She paced slowly down into the village centre, the reason she came today was after much arguing with herself, the jacket had to go, all of the other girls would be wearing dresses, elegant yet suitable for a kunoichi – Hinata felt she would go for something similar, yet find something that made it more to her own taste.

She looked through a few of the stores and she was picky to say the least, though this had to be just right and she had already tried on a dozen of the dresses, she came into the last shop, she'd never been in here before so maybe there was still hope, most of the stores she had gone to were upper class and all of the dresses were more suited for special occasions, or made kunoichi show of the fact they were upper class – something that Hinata didn't like at all, so she decided to try this store instead it felt more down to earth and she had a feeling she would find what she was looking for.

She was right, the room before her had so many clothes that had appealed to her immediately, seeing as this was her Sunday and she had nothing better to do, she tried them all on, finally coming out of the dressing room in what she had decided on. She tried with the dresses, but it just wasn't for her, if anything it made her feel less ninja like, and more like a civilian woman, not that she held anything against civilian women – she just wanted to be taken seriously.

The top she had chosen was a light shade of purple and was closer to violet or indigo than purple, along the arms and sides of the top was a slightly darker shade of the previous colour that looked more like a dull blue it also had slightly lower than normal V-neck and came with a white undershirt, a white triangle of the undershirt was shown beneath the V-neck and complemented the white fur on the collar and the bottom of the top – where her waist would be,which was also decorated with a strip of white fur, in the centre of the top was a purple crisscross pattern that went down to the lower part of the dress, this was also the darker shade of purple.

The pants she had chosen were simple, they were black with no real design to them, except that they clung to the shape of her legs just as well as the top and they showed of her figure – instead of hiding it like she did with her old jacket, the pants also weren't full length, instead they were around ¾ length and shown the remaining of her legs, for new boots she decided to go with the standard ninja boots/sandals except she went for a black pair instead of the usual navy blue colour. She figured she would ask for black headband when she became a genin and would wear it around her neck.

She looked in the mirror, as much as she loved the clothes she really didn't know if she could pull it off, she liked the look but it was a dramatic change from her jacket, even her long hair was a big difference on its own, she turned around to see the shop door open and she let out a soft gasp.

"Sorry about your T-shirt Nii-san, I guess wind manipulation can be dangerous just like the books said." He chuckled afterwards but it didn't take away any sincerity from the apology  
"Baka, I guess it's pay back from when the lightning struck your kunai and zapped you" the raven haired boy laughed at the memory before looking for 'his usual' in the shop.

Hinata was at the back of the shop now panicking, it was him, Naruto was in the same room with her, and he was going to see her in the new clothes, well if he likes them – then I will definitely buy them she thought to herself as she did, if on cue, the blonde turned in her direction, but didn't seem to recognise her and started looking at the sandals near to where she was stood.

"Ano…N-Naruto-k-kun?" she said quietly to the blonde, tugging on the arm of his sleeve just in case he never heard her. The blonde turned at looked at her with a smile, he looked her up and down trying to figure out who it was – then his eyes met hers and a blush fell across her face.

"Hey Hinata-chan! Are those new clothes? You look really good in them!" he exclaimed, Hinata froze and a heavy blush formed on her face as she hid her cheeks in her hands  
"D-Do you really mean it Naruto-kun? She asked finding confidence in his kind words. He simply nodded then put his index and thumb together making a rectangle with his two hands and pointed it in Hinata's direction rotating it and moving around her pretending it was a camera.  
He chuckled "Beautiful." He said like a happy photographer,

"T-Thank you Naruto-kun." She said before she plucked up the courage to steal a hug, but before she could pull away and run to the counter and escape the store like she intended,she felt a pair of arms around her shoulders and she was lightly pressed against him as her head was resting on his shoulder. For some reason though her blush had vanished and it all felt so natural, the hug was warm and caring and she noted down that this day was the best in her life so far.

He released her and told her that Sasuke was waiting for him before saying goodbye and running out of the store to meet the Uchiha, re-collecting herself after the moment, then sprinted over to the counter and declared that she would like ten sets of the clothing she was wearing all delivered to the Hyuuga compound and that she would pay double the price if they were delivered before next Sunday. With that she ran from the store after paying for the set she was wearing, almost forgetting her bag of old clothes.

She had managed to get back to the Hyuuga compound in record time, her house still empty, she slammed her bed room door closed and squealed with pure joy before slumping down on her bed and staring at the ceiling 'Naruto-kun called me beautiful.' She thought feeling the heat rise in her face once again.

She remembered his hug and wished he was here to give her another…'what if he had kissed me' she thought, then ran into the bathroom with a nose bleed to attend to.

* * *

**Authors notes: All about Hinata! Hope you enjoyed it, if you did then you can Review, Favourite or add to Alerts and I would spend a little of my Authors Notes section thanking you like below.**

**Thank you to all those that Reviewed, added to Favourites and all of those who added to Alerts.**


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

**Chapter 7: Academy Start!  
**

* * *

Water droplets trickled down the glass of the window, often they would connect with other loose drops and continue the journey downwards together before dropping to impact the hard ground below, the blonde let out a sigh that seemed to fill the dark room with noise, it's navy blue walls allowing the darkness to take control which seemed to help give the room a gloomy feel. He sat on the large wooden window sill with his back against the cold wall, staring blankly at the large sheet of glass mesmerized by the dancing water.

Whenever he tried to look further out in to the distance -away from the raindrops that freefell down the glass, he found that his eyes would often lose focus and he would soon revert to watching the hypnotising water display. The night was dark – almost pitch black, the clouds were most likely to be blamed for this, as they hid the stars from view by forming a dark grey blanket across the night sky, the ambient sound of heavy rain flowing from the heavens was all that could be heard and each reoccurring noise seemed to pierce the ears of the seemingly depressed blonde.

"Oi…Sasuke…" He called out weakly to his counterpart who was in the dimly lit kitchen, the echo of socked feet slapping against wooden flooring indicated that he was getting closer to the blonde, soon he stood leaning against the wooden door frame.  
"What is it Naruto?" he asked in a serious tone, which in a way matched the atmosphere the night was providing.

He pulled his dull blue eyes away from the glass and looked towards the raven haired boy who stood in the doorway, the dim light highlighting some of his features; he had changed, just like Naruto had – they had grown not only physically but mentally as well, holding a different outlook to what was around them, they were mature beyond question even in their young age of nine years old the two looked like they had seen hell, he glanced over Sasuke's form who was still standing there waiting for a response.

He no longer dressed in his dark navy blue t-shirt-instead he now wore a black long-sleeved t-shirt, and over the top of it was a loosely fitting, crimson vest-top which made the outfit look slightly more casual – like his previous t-shirt, it too had the Uchiha crest on its back but in a much smaller form.  
His white shorts were also missing from his person and were replaced by a pair of fitted, full-length, black combat pants with a dark red trim along their sides, and to complete his outfit he wore standard black ninja sandals.

"Do you…Do you think they'll accept us?" he asked the boy standing in the doorway, who then let out a sigh and disappeared into the kitchen, sensing the importance of this conversation he had went to pour himself and Naruto some green tea hoping to calm the both of them. He carefully walked back into the living room, passing the cup of hot tea to the blonde, and sitting at the other end of the large windowsill.

Sasuke stole a glance at the window before answering Naruto; in all honesty though he couldn't answer, he felt the same as the blonde sitting before him, it took him a little while just to think where to start.  
"I don't know what to think, I assume that people will act like they always have around me, they haven't been given a reason to change." The blonde only answered with a nod before the two gazed out of the window. "I was always excited about joining the academy until now." Naruto said before turning towards the dark haired boy.

Sasuke let out another sigh before he let his head bang against the wall softly as he stared up at the ceiling "there's no way around it, it's the only way we can become genin, besides it's too late now, we start tomorrow." he said sounding a little defeated.  
"Such a waste of our time, I'll be surprised if we learn anything at all." He huffed towards the blonde.  
"Well soon after we finish the academy I heard we get put into teams, that means we'll get to do missions!" he said a little excitement evident in his voice before fading as if it were never there at all.  
"I just hope _she _isn't there." As the blonde said this Sasuke's eyes turned cold.  
"If she is I'll deal with her." He stated, the blonde gave a sad smile and the two decided to change the subject.

After a while the two decided that it was time to call it a day, tomorrow after all would be their first day of the academy-they'd trained all their lives for this and soon they would be real ninja, even if only the low rank of a Genin.

* * *

By the next day the rain storm had passed completely, leaving puddles to decorate the empty early morning streets, Naruto let out a yawn even after getting dressed and completing his daily routine he still needed a little extra time to wake up, although Sasuke – who was now walking alongside him may put up a good act – Naruto could tell that he still wasn't exactly wide awake.

The two walked towards the academy with seemingly little to say, that happened between the two sometimes, however it never managed to feel awkward, as if the two welcomed the silence every now and again and at this point in time they were using said silence to collect their thoughts about their first day of the academy. The streets were empty even as they neared the centre, showing that it was in fact still early in the morning, and although the sun was shining brightly the morning air still had a slight chill to it.

"Hn." Sasuke let out after seeing a few other academy students on their way to the academy, and the blonde beside him used it as a conversation starter of sorts.  
"What's wrong Sasuke?" Naruto asked, usually when Sasuke made that noise he was displeased about something or merely shrugging something off.  
"It's nothing, I'm just glad we haven't been pestered like we usually are." He said with a smirk, Naruto just gave a nod; he too was getting sick of being confronted in the streets.

Finally the two arrived at the academy doors, and instead of waiting for an invitation – much to the surprise of the other students that had previously arrived the two walked straight inside and casually travelled down the corridor until they reached what they believed would be their classroom, soon after the crowd of students outside soon followed their lead and were all crowded round the door to the room.

Iruka opened the door expecting to go meet his new students by the front entrance but was shocked to see them all herded around the classroom but shone them a smile and passed it off as their motivation to learn and become ninja, after allowing them to enter the class he had them line up at the back of the room, and each student was made to introduce themselves, which finally ended with Iruka introducing himself to the class, before allowing them to choose their seats.

There was a shuffling of feet and the students began to sit down, Naruto sitting down next to Sasuke of course, with an empty seat to the left of him, Naruto looked around the room and saw that a few people were still deciding where to sit, the he saw her – and she looked angry to say the least.  
She fumed over to the table in which he was sat and began tapping her foot as if waiting for something, Naruto tilted his head to the side in a confused gesture, questioning what the girl was waiting for – there was a seat spare after all.

"Will you move already?" she huffed in a tone he soon remembered – It was her. Sasuke's frown deepened, he knew it was Sakura who had done it to him as soon as Naruto had finished telling the story, well he didn't know anyone else their age who had pink hair, and being truthful to himself he decided it was probably something she would to vent her anger. He was going to deal with this just like he told Naruto he would, but apparently he was beaten to it.

"Ahh… I remember you now Sakura-_chan…_" he said to the girl politely, the girl just glared at him before he continued "I forgot to thank you…" he muttered to her, he had caught her interest and she decided to ask "T-Thank me for what? …" She said with her glare still fixed on the boy. 'If he would just move so I can sit next to Sasuke-kun then he wouldn't have to bring it up!' she raged to herself.

"Well carving the word 'Demon' into my chest with a kunai before stabbing me in the stomach of course." He said without even a stutter, a lot of the students in the room gasped at that and Iruka now wore a serious frown. "I'm sure you remember Sakura-chan! You know after I was pinned up against the wall with kunai stuck in my arms." He said in his normal cheery tone, hearing it made Hinata wince at the memory.

"Sakura. Outside now." Iruka stated in a no nonsense manner and the pink haired girl soon walked out of the room, head hung low – staring at the floor, Sasuke gave a satisfied smirk to the blonde – although he wasn't going to forgive her for what she had done.  
"N-Naruto-k-kun you can sit over here next to me if you like…" said a timid voice from the far left corner of the room, Naruto looked at her with a smile, he hadn't seen Hinata in almost a year but couldn't take up her offer.  
"Sorry Hinata-chan I can't do that…" he said before glancing at Sasuke and looking back up to Hinata with a smile.

"You can sit next to me if you like, after all you didn't even reply to my letter!" chirped a voice coming from the table behind him, he turned and smiled when he recognised the blonde from all that time ago, surprised that she actually remembered.  
"Erm… Ino-chan… Your table doesn't have any empty seats…" Naruto said a little confused and he didn't want to embarrass the girl for her mistake.  
"That's okay Naruto-kun, I'm sure someone will give up their seat." She said with a sweet smile before turning and glaring at the people next to her, Naruto scratched the back of his head a little embarrassed by the girls actions…it wasn't a mistake after all.

A frown now dressed Hinata's face as she decided she had to take control of the situation, so she marched over to where Naruto was sat and proceeded to sit next to him, after she had sat down she gave him her most innocent smile – hoping that he wouldn't make her leave the spot, fortunately for her though, he just gave her a foxy grin.

Iruka excused himself from the class with good reason, Sakura was waiting for him outside like she had been instructed, and attacking another member of the village whoever they were is to be considered a crime, after informing her that she would be punished for her actions, the two headed to the Hokage tower, where the Hokage would be the one to decide her punishment.

* * *

A few minutes later Iruka had returned to the classroom and the students again were waiting to learn, however the matter had not yet been dealt with.

"Naruto, the Hokage would like you to head over to the tower for an important meeting." Iruka said calmly – he had become quite good at masking his anger over the years, the blonde looked a little shocked but eventually he nodded and headed off towards the Hokage tower, hoping that he wasn't in trouble of any kind.

he arrived at the hokage tower in record time which caught the third a little by surprise, but he welcomed Naruto into the office nonetheless, however when seeing Sakura he wasn't sure what the meeting would be about although he didn't think he was the one in trouble anymore.  
"Naruto, as the actions by were in fact against you, you are to be the one who decides the method of punishment."  
"Also I believe she has something to say." The hokage said before taking a long puff of his pipe.

"G-Gomen." She said with sincerity, Naruto just let out a sigh, before nodding.  
"Okay I've thought of her punishment." He said surprising the two; Sakura winced knowing that whatever it was wouldn't be nice. The hokage just nodded allowing Naruto to go ahead with whatever he had planned.  
"Come with me Sakura." He stated before she followed him out of the room.

Sakura sighed as she walked down the stairs, she knew it was going to be something twisted and horrible, it had to be for what she had done to him, but to her surprise he turned and smiled weakly.  
"So what are you going to do to me?" she said, his silence was practically killing her.  
"For your punishment." He stated in a serious manner "I want you to get to know me… I don't want people to think of me as a demon… hopefully you won't think I'm so bad after you've gotten to know me…" he said in a hurt voice, even if he didn't usually show it, being called a demon wasn't exactly fun.

Sakura was now wide eyed and her jaw hung loose, 'that's his punishment?' She thought, wondering on what kind of punishment that was, not that she was complaining – she was getting off easy.  
"Well let's go, First I'll show you my old apartment I guess." He said before leaving her behind to process what had happened, soon though she ran after him and caught up, who knew if ANBU were watching her.

After climbing the stairs to the apartment, Sakura looked at it – her first thoughts were that the building was run down, and people shouldn't have had to live there, she even noticed on the way up that his bedroom window seemed to be broken. She let out a sigh; it was still much better than any other form of punishment.

Naruto opened the door and slumped down onto the couch, he had left most of his things behind when moving into the Uchiha compound and unsurprisingly they still remained. He patted the seat next to him telling her to sit down, but before she did he stopped her.  
"Oh, Why don't you put a movie on…It'll make this at least a little less awkward." She was again surprised, but nodded and chose a movie before putting it on and sitting next to the blonde – not to close to him, she didn't want to be here, but not too far, distance could really make the room stay silent or so she had been told.

"So this is it? My punishment is to watch a movie with you?" she said a little angry, it seemed to her that he was taking advantage of the situation. Naruto understood she had took it the wrong way.  
"Well… you think of me as a 'demon' … this is my chance to show you that I'm just like everyone else." He said calmly, although she hated to admit it that did make sense and only added to her already overflowing guilt.

There was silence in the room for a while and the two just watched the movie until Naruto spoke up.  
"I'm sorry about what I said earlier… I could see guilt in your eyes but… well …" he said trying to think of a good way to word the next statement without causing her to get angry.  
"Most of the girls kinda … _like _Sasuke-nii, I didn't know if you did too, and if I didn't say something he would have for sure. I thought it wouldn't be as bad if it came from me." He managed to say while scratching the back of his head – it was awkward alright.

'Even after all I did to him, he was still thinking of what would be best for me? What the hell is with this guy?' She thought to herself, confused about the whole matter, feeling even more guilt about what she had done.  
"I-I'm sorry for what I did…" She muttered out sincerely 'Not like he will forgive me though, huh?' she questioned in her mind, for some reason she felt a lot more relaxed after she apologised.  
"It's okay… in fact since you've apologised I guess I can forgive you." He said with a genuine smile, things were going better than he expected – not once did he think that she would apologise to him.

'What? Just like that he forgives me! … I'm so confused!' she thought to herself, although the guilt was seemingly gone from her actions after he had spoken, she found herself slumping against the couch and looked towards the blonde, was it possible to be this kind?  
"What's with you anyway? Why are you doing all of this?" She asked hoping he'd explain in more detail.

"Why keep enemies when they could be friends?" he stated, it took a little while to settle in for the cherry blossom girl, before she sat up straight and looked at him like he was crazy.  
"So… you want to be friends … with me?" she asked nervously, for a punishment this wasn't so bad.  
"W-Well if you don't mind…" he said scratching the back of his head.  
"I… um, well … okay?" She answered.

Naruto flashed her a happy grin before going to make himself a drink, of course he offered his guest one as well and soon carried the two glasses back to the couch, he could tell she still seemed pretty tense.  
"Just relax would ya? You apologized so all that stuff doesn't matter to me anymore, like a fresh start…" he said with a smile "…but I doubt Sasuke-nii would think the same…" he muttered, which didn't go unnoticed judging by the horrified expression on Sakura's face.

Naruto noticed that the girl suddenly seemed depressed and the blonde let out a sigh before sitting next to her. "So…d-does he hate me…?" she said in a volume only just louder than a whisper. Naruto decided 'blunt is best' for this situation and decided to roll with it.  
"Yes. He takes a very strong disliking to anyone that's harmed me or even insulted me, because of what is sealed inside me." He stated, it might have seemed cold but he thought it for the best.

The pink haired girl let out a sudden sniff "So you do _like_ Sasuke-nii after all, huh?" he asked only to receive a slow nod, "W-What could I do… to make him forgive me? …" she asked shakily but Naruto just shook his head. "Just leave him alone." He stated and she was about to argue when he continued "Like people say, time heals all wounds … but unfortunately Sasuke and I have _a lot_of wounds…" She looked up at that a little confused.

"W-what do you mean…?" she asked curiously, Sasuke rarely spoke to her and when he did it wasn't for long, although the two had spoken in almost 2 years now.  
"That's not my place to say, if Sasuke wanted you to know he would have told you…" Naruto said giving a slight smile which took away the sting from his words.  
"The best chance you have of him forgiving you is to stay away from him, or every time he sees you it will just remind him of what you done." Again all she could do is nod when suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"C'mon, let's go back, this was meant to be my first day at the academy after all!" he said with his usual cheery tone, which managed to lift a sad smile to the girls face. The two headed back to the academy, Naruto was walking quickly as he didn't even want to leave in the first place, never mind spend roughly an hour in his old apartment, as soon as he arrived he pushed open the building's large double doors before walking hurriedly to his classroom.

He got a few strange looks from the class, most likely wanting to know why he was called to the Hokage tower, after him though –Sakura walked in the room and they suddenly understood, Naruto resumed his place in between Sasuke and Hinata, and Sakura found herself sitting in the corner out of the way. Yet even still she could feel glares from a few members of the class including Sasuke and Hinata.

"W-welcome back Naruto-kun, was everything okay with the H-Hokage?" Hinata said, doing her best not to stutter but felt like melting when Naruto gave her a warm smile.  
"Thanks Hinata-chan, everything was fine! The old-man just needed to see me about something!" he said, his mood now returned to being his normal happy self.  
"So what was it he wanted?" Sasuke asked before sending a glancing glare at Sakura.  
"Nothing special, I'll tell you at home, let's just enjoy the rest of our first day" he said changing the subject.

"Ano, N-N-Naruto-k-kun?" Hinata asked blushing a deep red, the blonde turned to see what she needed which only made her more nervous "I-I was hoping … well … I-I mean…If you want … I guess…" he could see the poor girl was struggling and just by looking at her fierce blush he could understand what she was going to ask.  
"Hey Hinata-chan, would you like to do something tonight if you're not busy? Sasuke-nii has a meeting with the council today and it gets pretty lonely…" He asked for her, the way she was going it would have taken her until the end of the day just to ask.

Hinata just nodded furiously before breathing and re-collecting herself "I'd love to Naruto-kun! … I mean… can we go straight from after class…?" she asked in her excitement only to gain a happy nod from Naruto. Then for the rest of the day Hinata watched the clock like a hawk, willing it into making time speed up so she could spend time alone with Naruto.

Then she heard Iruka wrapping up the last class of the day and couldn't have been more thankful, she nearly let out a squeal of excitement when he said the words 'Class dismissed.'  
Sasuke sighed and said his goodbyes to Naruto before heading off to the council meeting but before he did, he had to chat with a certain someone.

He saw her walking down the corridor and started to speed up, she was slowly trudging along when he appeared in front of her, and he did not look happy to see her.  
"Sakura." He said coldly making her heart feel like it was torn in two, and suddenly his expression turned into a deep frown.  
"He may have forgiven you, but don't think I have. If you ever do anything against him again you'll be sorry." He said before leaving the building still seething with rage.

She felt like bursting into tears on the spot, just as Naruto and Hinata were walking down the hallway, she could feel the hatred coming from Hinata just from being glared at. Naruto frowned and turned to Hinata "Hinata, stop it … we're friends now." He muttered which made the girl deathly quiet as if she daren't do anything that would upset Naruto.

Naruto put his hand on her shoulder like he had at his apartment which caused her to look up at him, on his face she saw a wide smile which almost told her 'everything is going to be alright' she relaxed a little and sniffed back tears.  
"I'll Cya tomorrow Sakura, take care." He said before the two left, even Hinata managed to nod a goodbye to the girl so that Naruto would be pleased with her.

Soon the two were walking through the forest, and although Hinata didn't know where they were going she didn't question it, she didn't care where she was going; as long as Naruto was there then it was perfect in her mind. Suddenly they came to a clearing, although it just looked like an average spot in the forest it felt cosy, and she was thankful that it was still surrounded by tree's so people wouldn't find them easily, which meant it really was going to be just the two of them.

Naruto let out a content sigh before falling onto his back, laying down with his hands behind his head as he looked towards the sky. He laid there peacefully watching the clouds stroll by, before he noticed that Hinata wasn't doing the same, in fact she sat formally on her knees which Naruto didn't really understand.  
"Hinata-chan?" he said and she suddenly jumped out of her skin, as if she was panicking – truthfully she was hoping she wasn't doing anything wrong.  
"Don't you like watching the clouds? Here, come lay down." He said innocently causing her to blush and slowly lay down next to him, when she was sure he was looking up she scooted as close to him as she could without the two of them touching.

Naruto seeing the subtle movements had a grin on his face, before he faced Hinata then gave her a look of shock; suddenly she started panicking again, just as he planned. He leaned in towards her face, squinting his eyes – almost like he was inspecting her. Doubts were flying around in her head at a million miles per hour before Naruto spoke.

"Hinata what is that all over your face? You look so silly!" he exclaimed and almost instantly Hinata was patting her face trying to remove whatever was making her look so silly, she felt the heat rise in her face and she almost felt like crying, everything she had done so far had just made Naruto disappointed. Then she heard an outburst of laughter.

"Ahhh…" he breathed "There's nothing really on your face!" he said with another chuckle  
"But now you know that even if you thought things were going bad I'd still be here, so you don't have to be so uptight." He said giving her another one of his warm smiles. She let out a giggle unknowingly and she shuddered when she felt his touch.

His arm was now around her back so that she was laid on it, and his hand rested on the left side of her stomach, she looked down at his hand with a blush, before she felt herself get pulled towards him and she now found her head resting on his chest while she stared up at the sky. Although the sky didn't keep her attention long as she looked down from it and wrapped her arms around the blond before nuzzling against his chest in an attempt to get comfortable, but she immediately found that comfort when she felt his other arm wrap around her, softly holding her against his chest.

She knew that any moment she'd wake up and that it would just be another one of her dreams, and she let out a heavy sigh of defeat.  
"What's wrong Hinata-chan? ..." he asked to get no reply "Hinata?" he asked again, upon receiving no answer again he gave her a squeeze which seemed to pull her back to reality.  
"N-Naruto-kun?" she asked looking up at him confused, but he just gently rested her head against his chest and began stroking her now long hair which made her let out a content sigh and made her grip around him become a little tighter.  
"N-Nothing's wrong…everything is perfect…" she whispered just loud enough for him to hear.

* * *

**Author's Notes: Hope you enjoyed reading! Sorry if it took a while to get done, Thank you to all those that reviewed, added to Favorites and added to Alerts!**

**Next chapter will be a timeskip to end of the academy, just a warning!**


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto.

**Chapter 8: Changes.  
**

* * *

He sighed as he walked down the almost empty street, the sun's rays shining down upon his wild blonde locks, he raised his hand to his forehead and shifted his hitai ate so that his bangs almost covered it, having grown a fuller fringe similar to his fathers, he ran his hand through the back of it, testing its length, discovering it had grown to the lower half of his neck.

He blinked a couple of times before rubbing his eyes, removing the sleep that still remained in them, they shined a brilliant blue and the boy seemed to radiate a summery feel including the warmth.  
He pulled his white jacket open even further than it already was, hoping that he would manage to cool down a little more, his new jacket suited him a lot better, or so Sasuke had said, it was a brilliant white with a high collar that stopped just below his hair line, it's light blue trim matched his eyes and the single shirt like pocket stopped the jacket from looking too simple.

He'd also changed his bright orange pants for a pair of baggy black combats, along the side of them were strips of white which matched his jacket nicely, the pants had quite a number of pockets, most of them unused and were for design purposes only, on the left leg of the combats was a bandaged area in which his weapons pouch was located.

Although he hadn't wanted to change his black t-shirt that was decorated with a white swirl, he was forced to, so he bought a 'ninja suitable' version of the shirt, which was a fitted black tank top with the same design, for footwear the blonde went with the usual standard blue ninja sandals and his hitai ate was the standard issue blue.

Naruto sighed, as he opened the door to his classroom, he knew Sasuke was excited but he didn't have to leave the house without Naruto, the blonde shrugged his shoulders and walked in, hoping that the class liked his new outfit as much as he did.

As soon as he was through the door it seemed that all eyes were on him, except Sasuke's who gave a smirk before looking away, Naruto couldn't identify the emotion behind their stares and shrugged his shoulders about to walk to his seat.

"N-Naruto…?" a timid voice asked from her usual seat in the classroom, Naruto turned to the girl that he identified as Hinata and flashed a foxy grin towards her. *Thud.* Hinata was twitching on the floor behind her stool with blood trickling from her nose, Naruto sighed and sat down.

Sakura walked over and helped the girl back on to her stool with a giggle before smiling towards Naruto. "Ohayo Naruto" she said "Hey, Sakura" he said smiling back towards her, although the two had become friends – they didn't feel the need to use honorifics when addressing one another.

The cherry blossom smiled "Maybe we'll be on the same team" she said before going to sit down in her usual spot in the corner of the room, Naruto was about to answer before being interrupted by the blonde female that sat behind him.

"As if! I'm going to be on the team with _both_ Naruto-kun and Sasuke-Kun!" she said with a blush coming over her face at the thought of it.  
"Hmph! It sounds like you're trying to repopulate the Yamanaka clan!" Sakura retaliated making the blonde's blush deepen. 'Pure thoughts, pure thoughts, pure thoughts!' Ino thought battling her the urge to slip into a pleasant day dream.

"Don't tempt me…" Ino mumbled before Iruka came into the room who then let out a content sigh seeing that all of the students that had passed were here, he glanced over at Naruto seeing dazzling white instead of the blinding orange, though Iruka had Naruto pretty figured out or so he thought, his lack of paying attention throughout the years wasn't that he didn't care about the lessons, he simply already knew all about the subject at hand.

He remembered when he made Naruto stay behind after class and asked the boy why he slept through the lessons, and was shocked to say the least when Naruto suddenly adopted a more care-free attitude instead of his usual 'bouncy' attitude. He remembered Naruto merely stating that  
"I use the time during class to rest, that way I can train harder when I get home." Before shrugging his shoulders and leaving the room.

He smiled looking over the rest of his students; he just hoped they passed their jonin tests, well except for _those _three.

"Alright class listen up! I'm not gunna keep you here much longer, as soon as you're given your team you can head out." He said with a smile and gained the attention of the class. He saw them glancing around the room as if trying to figure out who they would be teamed up with or perhaps deciding who they'd like to be teamed up with.

"First up, Team 8. Team 8 will consist of: Shino Aburame…" the bug boy upon hearing this adjusted his sunglasses still remaining seemingly emotionless.  
"…Kiba Inuzaka…" Iruka continued before glancing from his list up at the dog user, who seemed to be indifferent about his team so far.  
"…and Sakura Haruno, your Jonin instructor is Kurenai Yuhi, you are to meet her at training ground 14, dismissed." Iruka finished before the three nodded and left to meet their instructor.

"Next will be Team 10 and will consist of: Nara Shikamaru…" the lazy genin itched the back of his head before looking away, he didn't really care who was on his team, as it would probably end up being troublesome.  
"…Choji Akimichi…" hearing this he gave Shikamaru a thumbs up with a grin before turning back to Iruka to hear who the last member of the team would be.  
"…and Yamanaka Ino. Your jonin instructor is Sarutobi Asuma, and you will meet in training  
ground 5, dismissed." Iruka said before looking at the last of the list.  
Shikamaru turned to the blonde female before sighing and walking out. 'Troublesome, just like I expected.' he thought to himself.

"Well you three, It has been mentioned for me to inform you after the other teams were given, that you would be joining an elite team, Team 7, your Jonin instructor being Kakashi Hatake, you are to meet at Training ground 12." Naruto's eyes suddenly widened at the name, before managing to mask it with excitement as he guessed Sasuke noticed his slight movement, not much gotten past that Uchiha.

He smiled up at the boy who he called 'nii-san' before the two of them turned back to Iruka hoping for a little more information, but after flipping through sheets of paper he gave them a shake of his head indicating that was all he was told, so Hinata, Sasuke and Naruto walked towards training ground 12, thoughts of a certain silver haired jonin filling his mind.

* * *

The three walked into the training ground, it was a large open plain, however that's all it was, there was no jonin instructor to be seen, Naruto had heard about this and let out a sigh.

"We might as well make ourselves comfortable. He might be a while." The blonde said, the other nodded and they slumped down in what they considered to be roughly the middle of the training ground, so that there was no possibility their instructor wouldn't see them if he were to arrive.

two hours later they heard a *Poof* and with the clearing of smoke a jonin appeared, his hair silver and gravity defying, he seemed almost emotionless due to his face mask covering the lower half of his face and his Hitai ate was worn in such a way that one of his eyes was covered, all that was visible was an eye smile.

"Yo." The jonin said as he opened his eyes and looked down at the blonde 'M-Minato!' he questioned in his mind before shaking his head.  
"Sorry, I got lost on the road of life, you see there was this old woman and…" after one long winded excuse the three genin let out a sigh, two of them hoping that this man really was a jonin.

"Well, It doesn't really matter that I'm late anyway…" he said in a flat tone.  
"What do you mean it doesn't matter that you're late!" Naruto roared – he had heard there was jonin tests set in place to decide if a person would become a genin, otherwise they would be sent back to the academy.  
"You weren't told?" Kakashi asked a little surprised as he peered down at his orange book.

"Told what?" the three said in unison.  
"Well… how should I put this…" the three now looked confused.

"**There is no team 7.**" Kakashi stated.

Their smiled dropped into looks of seriousness while Sasuke glanced towards the ground away from the other two.  
"Ano…W-What do you mean there is n-no Team 7, Kakashi-Sensei." Asked Hinata nervously hoping she had misheard, here she was on a team with Naruto, and apparently the team didn't exist.  
"Well Hinata, it is exactly as I said…" he let out a sigh. "The council have ordered that Sasuke Uchiha is to be trained by ANBU to be ANBU…much like a person I'm sure he would rather me not name." Kakashi said which earned a low growl from the Uchiha.

Hinata was about to interrupt before Kakashi continued.  
"Seeing that the Hyuuga clan was never one to be outdone, your father demanded you get the same treatment, and you are both to be trained by ANBU, separately of course." Hinata turned to Naruto.  
Suprisingly he nodded "It does seem like the right option, I agree with Hiashi-Sama." Kakashi nodded.  
"You two are dismissed." Kakashi said before the two ANBU-to-be left the training ground leaving only Naruto.

"Honestly…" Naruto chuckled "I didn't think that they'd assume I was so dangerous this early." Kakashi only smiled, but knew full well what he was talking about; ANBU had monitored the two in the Uchiha compound for some time. The jonin sighed. "Looks like it will be just me and you after all; we will waste no time with D-Rank missions." Naruto nodded to the elder.

"Uhm…Can you tell me about my father…?" Naruto asked nervously, if what had heard was true then…  
"Your father? … I don't think I've met him…sorry." Kakashi said a little saddened.  
"Take away the whiskers." Naruto said bluntly to the silver haired jonin, who showed no signs of shock.  
"So I was right after all. You probably know that he was my Sensei, right Naruto-kun?" Kakashi said with a smile, he had been given the opportunity he wanted all of those years ago, to help his Sensei's child.  
"Sasuke's older brother had left a Bingo book lying around." Naruto said before chuckling towards the jonin.

"You do realise however…I'll have to test your ability, and although your skill – which I can guess will _not_ be genin level…you will have to take the appropriate exams before you gain the correct title." Kakashi explained, Naruto nodded – he'd already accepted such things.  
"Well, hopefully you won't use that nasty red eye on me at least." Naruto said with a smile which earned a chuckle from Kakashi.  
"I must really be getting famous." He said with an eye smile.

* * *

"Hokage-sama, I am here to report." Said a loyal ANBU with a cat like mask, the old Hokage just nodded and took a puff of his pipe.

"It was beyond what we expected, though he seems to have stabilized over the years, he has also gained power. More so that what we estimated from him, also…we found this at training ground 12."  
Said the ANBU before laying down a kunai on the Hokage's desk, it was an odd shape, and had three prongs, the middle one being slightly longer, and an unknown writing decorated the handle of the kunai.

The Hokages eyes widened. "Get the out of here! Quickly!" as the ANBU hastily moved his arm towards the kunai and then there was a yellow flash that filled through the room and Naruto appeared on the Hokages desk in a crouched, landing position. He looked up towards the hokage who had shock written all over his face.

"Thanks for the _Team._ Good to see I'm a '_trusted member and ninja of Konoha_.'" Naruto spat out towards the hokage, who had a feeling of guilt and shame wash over him as he glanced away from the boy.  
"Impossible! Hokage-sama? Is he…The Yondaime's son!" the ANBU cried out to the old man who sat behind the desk. Naruto swivelled around to face him.  
"Sorry Kitty, You've just revealed an S-rank secret." He said before vanishing from the room in a flash of yellow. Before he could ask the hokage what he meant, two ANBU dropped into the room and 'removed' the man.

"Sasuke Uchiha, Awaiting specialized unit." The ANBU behind the hawk mask said.  
"Hinata Hyuuga, Awaiting specialized unit." The ANBU behind the fox mask said.

The hokage puffed out smoke that filled a portion of the room, before he looked back towards the two in front of him.

"Uchiha Sasuke, you are to be trained in Assassination." The male behind the hawk mask nodded.  
"Hyuuga Hinata, you are to be trained in tracking." The fox masked female nodded before the two disappeared in a shunshin.

The hokage let out a sigh as he puffed on his pipe, reflecting on Naruto's actions he shook his head, for once in a very long time, he wasn't sure on what to do.

* * *

Upon hearing someone knock at her door, Sakura rushed down the stairs, she was the only one at home, as per usual – her parents didn't speak to her much after she had 'shamed their family', so any company was welcomed with open arms.

"O-Oh, Naruto... come in." She said moving a side to let the blonde in; he flashed a weak smile before the two walked in to the living room.  
"Is there anything I can get you?" she asked with a smile, the blonde had a determined look in his eyes; it seemed to put Sakura on edge when she glanced at him.

"Actually Sakura, there is one thing you can do, which is why I came here." He said before placing his jacket down on the couch.  
"W-What is it Naruto?" She asked a little surprised, her shock continued as he pulled of his black tank top leaving him shirtless. Sakura took a glance and was rather shocked to see that his body was built, not enough to be considered bulky, but definitely athletic, but as her eyes traced up his body she saw her mark.

Etched into his chest, acting like a bridge between his pectorals was a carved in scar that read  
'Demon.' Just as his story had said. She winced and looked away from it.  
"I-I'm S-Sorr-"She said before being interrupted.

"Well you see Sakura; I'd like you to do it again. This time use this." He said handing her a three pronged kunai, seeing a seal, she said 'Kai' and released it, and suddenly the blade became hot, like a branding Iron.  
"W-Why…Naruto…" she whimpered. The blonde smiled at the pinkette which seemed to ease her.  
"Don't worry; Just make it nice and big." He chuckled before biting down on his index finger showing he was ready.

* * *

She dropped the kunai into water, instantly it made steam, and he walked into the kitchen, blood was trickling down his body as the word demon was again carved on to his pectorals, this time it was large in a block, bold, black font which the seal had produced after burning. (Like the font style 'Impact.') The wound quickly closed due to a certain fox and he allowed Sakura to wipe the blood from his body.

"Thanks Sakura-chan." He said adding the honorific which made her look at him a little curious.  
"It was a lot to ask from you" he said with a smile. Fishing into his jacket pocket he pulled out a necklace that looked similar to a regular steel chain and pulled it on before grabbing his jacket.  
Picking up his tank top he was about to place it in the bin before he turned.

"Odd question but… you don't want this do you…? I don't like to waste…" he said scratching the back of his head. To his surprise she nodded to his offer and added a chuckle.  
"It looks pretty comfortable; I guess I can wear it around the house." He nodded before throwing it so that it landed on her head; it fell across her face blocking her vision as he let out a laugh.  
"Naruto-kun!" She exclaimed adding the honorific seeing as he had.

"Thanks for everything Sakura-chan, I best be going." He said with a grin.  
"I'll see you out" she answered, but his grin only grew.  
"No need." He said and with that, and a blazing flash of yellow light he was gone.

Sakura took off the top she was currently wearing and slipped on the still warm tank top, the warmth made her shudder slightly before she gained a grin on her face and ran out of the front door.  
'Ino is going to be so pissed!' she thought, giggling as she ran down the street.

Though what she didn't see was an ANBU member glancing over the town from a rooftop, stood proudly – wearing the mask of a fox. Her eyes followed the pink haired girl as she glared down upon her.

She had seen the whole event; Naruto had done nothing wrong by all means, if anything she just saw it as him getting a tattoo from the pink haired kunoichi. However, the fact that the girl was scurrying around the village wearing a piece of his clothing, that was wrong.

* * *

With a blaze of yellow light Naruto appeared in his home, the Uchiha complex, in the house he had lived in with Sasuke for many years, he stood in the bathroom admiring his new 'tattoo', now his upper body outfit consisted of his jacket, and the metal chain around his neck, he wore no shirt and his 'tattoo' was visible for all to see as his jacket was still open.

"I need a kick ass sword." Naruto said with a smirk before heading downstairs.

He heard the door open and sped up hoping to see Sasuke, when he arrived downstairs he saw a member of ANBU with a hawk mask. His chakra flared and his blue eyes – although remaining blue, now showed slit-like pupils.

"_**You have no right to be here! You are trespassing on the land of the Uchiha! This land belongs to my Brother!" **_ Naruto roared to the ANBU who span around feeling the killing intent. The ANBU smirked behind his mask before pulling it off.  
"Well, it's good to see how protective you are of this place." He said with a smile.  
"_**S-Sas**__uke-_nii…" Naruto stated as he relaxed and his chakra dispersed the blonde let out a relieved sigh.  
"I thought they might have been looking for something." He said with a chuckle as the Uchiha shook his head and laughed. "Honestly…and I thought you were listening to Kakashi today." He said with a chuckle, Naruto just scratched the back of his head nervously before remembering the conversation.

"Naruto!" the Uchiha quickly cried out "What the hell happened to your chest!" he asked in a protective tone, the mark was a lot bigger than he saw before, the previous one was a small carving; this looked more like a tattoo.  
"Oh this… I did it, it's part of who I am; besides it will save people telling me what I already know." He said with eyes full of determination, not his usual look when talking about the whole 'demon' subject.

Sasuke sighed "Well…It does look kind of cool…" he said with a smirk, Naruto face lit up.  
"I know right!" he said with confidence before walking towards the kitchen.  
"You hungry Sasuke-Nii?" asked Naruto only to receive the obvious answer – so he started preparing the cup ramen. Sasuke walked into the kitchen, hopefully this went well.

"Naruto…" he said and the blonde quickly spun with a smile on his face. "What's up?" he chirped.  
"Well…" the Uchiha sighed "Hinata won't be able to spend as much time with you anymore…and it's the same for me…" Sasuke said a little pained. The blonde just shown him a weak smile.  
"It's okay Sasuke-nii, as long as I get to see you two sometimes." He said and the raven haired boy just nodded. Then he drew a kunai from his weapons pouch.

"Naruto." He stated, gaining the blondes attention which immediately saw the knife.  
"Sasuke!" He questioned, the Uchiha saw what his gesture could have implied.  
"It's nothing like that, Baka. Get a kunai." He said looking towards the blonde who did as he was asked, however was a little suspicious of the raven-haired boy.  
"Now, do what I do." Sasuke said.

He took his kunai and made a small cut across the palm of his left hand and instructed Naruto to do it to his right hand, following the instructions the blonde cut a similar cut onto the palm of his right hand.

"Like this Sasuke?" he asked as he showed the boy his right hand, Sasuke nodded and instructed them to shake hands. The two cuts met and blood seeped from one's hand to the others, before Sasuke smiled.

"Now, let's promise, whatever happens, we'll still be brothers." Sasuke said with determination, he had already 'lost' one brother, he wasn't about to lose another just because they walked different paths.  
"I promise." Naruto said with a nod of his head.

Then the pain came. The two immediately pulled the hands to their heads shrieking and crying out in pain as if their heads were about to explode and they were desperately trying to contain the blast.  
"Sas…uke! W-Wha...what have you done to me!" The blonde said as he writhed in pain and fell to his knees.  
"B-Baka! …Th…arrgghh! ...Wasn't sup…posed to happen!" said the Uchiha as he rolled around the floor almost begging for the pain to stop.

The pain continued for several minutes, until their pain threshold succumbed and the two fell into a blissful darkness.

* * *

"Urghh..." Sasuke stirred as his whole body felt pain, he twisted his head to look over at the blonde who seemed to be stirring as well judging by the hissing noise he had just made.

"What the hell happened…?" Sasuke asked not expecting an answer; Naruto lifted his head to gaze at the raven haired boy, before the two of the shot up.

"Your eyes! /Your eyes!" the two exclaimed to one another  
"What about my eyes! /What about my eyes!" the two said, at the same time.  
Naruto stood up before walking over to the nearest mirror nervously, and Sasuke decided to follow.

"What the hell is wrong with my eyes!" Naruto exclaimed, questioning the Uchiha.  
"I-I don't know! Just calm down okay? Can you see alright?" Sasuke said, panicking himself before gazing in the mirror.  
"T-This is…" he said in shock.  
"What! What is it!" Naruto demanded, before Sasuke grabbed his wrist.

Sasuke pulled Naruto into the room with the trap door before opening it and almost dragging the blonde down it, he unsealed the door before walking into a dimly lit room; candles that looked as if they had been burning for centuries provided the little light in the room. The two stared up at the giant tablet replica.

Sasuke peered at the last section he could remember reading, and that was with three tomoe.  
He gazed at the carvings below where he was able to read last, not expecting much, but became wide eyed when finding out he could read it.

"Mangekyou Sharingan:  
Greatest strength, greatest weakness,  
New found light will bring the darkness,  
only something of another brings light eternal." Sasuke read aloud.

Naruto itched his head, "What does it mean Sasuke?" he asked, not used to riddles.  
"Hmm… it means that although it brings great power, it can leave you weakened. New found light refers to awakening of the Mangekyou Sharingan and the darkness refers to becoming blind. Apparently something from another person is needed to advance to the next stage."

"Wow Sasuke-nii, you're good at riddles." The blonde said in a shocked tone.  
Hesitantly Sasuke looked down further…and saw that he could in fact read it again.

"Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan:  
Safe from the dark,  
accept the light,  
bonded with another,  
freed from the curse. "The raven-haired boy spoke, and looked towards Naruto.

"I guess it was blood…?" Sasuke asked the blonde who nodded.  
"Did that last riddle mean you wouldn't turn blind from use?" Naruto asked Sasuke.  
"I'm sure of it, and my eyes have never felt this strong before… you see if you can read from the tablet." He told the blonde who nodded.

Naruto looked at the top of the tablet, the initial sharingan stage that could be read with normal eye-sight, he looked towards the next stage which he guessed was how to mature the sharingan, however he couldn't read it. He lowered his vision towards the ones that Sasuke had read aloud but couldn't read those. He glanced towards the last stage, not expecting much, only to find he could read it.

"Huh." He stated which gained the Uchiha's attention. "I can't read any of them accept the last one."  
Sasuke scratched his head. "That's weird…maybe it's because you're not an Uchiha?" he asked as the blonde shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe…"

"Rinnegan:  
God of creation,  
God of destruction,  
they will be six."

"Did you understand that one Sasuke?" Naruto asked with high hopes, but Sasuke just shook his head, Naruto let out a sigh before Sasuke spoke.  
"Naruto, can you turn off the Rinnegan?" Sasuke asked as he turned off his Sharingan.  
Naruto closed his eyes and concentrated on removing the chakra that seemed to be placed in his eyes before opening them, revealing his normal blue pair.

"Good." Sasuke stated to the blonde "A lot of people would do almost anything to get these eyes… make sure you only practice them in sealed areas – although I shouldn't have to tell that to someone who knows Fuinjutsu, and if an enemy discovers your eyes… well let's just say…make sure he has no way of sharing the information." Sasuke lectured as Naruto nodded to his elder.

"By the way…how long were we out?" Naruto asked the raven haired boy who shrugged his shoulders. "I'm sure it wasn't too long." He answered, although Naruto didn't agree as he raced upstairs and looked at the clock.

"Crap! I have to go Sasuke-nii! I have a mission as an escort to the land of waves! Cya!" Naruto shouted as he ran out of the house. Sasuke sighed, '…Baka.'

* * *

**Author's Notes: I think the name of the chapter went well with this one, hope you enjoyed it! ****Thanks to all of those who have reviewed, added to Favorites and those following the story!**

**Tell me what you think, Review – Favorite – Follow!**


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

**Chapter 9: Mission to wave.  
**

* * *

He ran as fast as his legs would carry him, sprinting through the maze of houses in the Uchiha compound, soon though he reached the exit of the compound and instead of carefully ducking under the 'do not cross' tape, he merely flashed away in a yellow blur.

'Probably should have done that in the first place…' Naruto thought while he scratched the back of his head as he arrived at the stairs leading to the Hokage's office. He saw a female ANBU walking down the stairs wearing a fox mask and proceeded to glare at her, he had used to like ANBU members, before he figured they could have probably stopped his beatings, and then found out they weren't watching him for his safety, but to keep an eye on him.

"N-Naruto-kun… please d-don't look at me like tha-"she stuttered before being interrupted by the blonde throwing himself around her. "Hinata-chan!" Naruto exclaimed while hugging the girl tightly, a deep blush came across her face and she was thankful for the mask at this moment in time.  
"W-Why are you going to see the Hokage, Naruto-kun?" she asked the blonde who pulled back to look at her, panic written across his face.

"That's right! Sorry Hinata! I have to get my mission!" He said before charging up the stairs, she smiled at the blonde and decided she would wait for him to come back down the stairs, so she could at least say goodbye. Though something she didn't want to see seemed to be approaching the Hokage tower, the pink coloured hair quickly drawn her attention and her eyes narrowed in distaste.

* * *

Naruto opened the door and went inside the Hokage's office; he looked towards the man with masked eyes, not showing the warmth they once held for the man, now his cerulean eyes seemed to be guarded – as if not wanting to give anything away, he no longer trusted the man like he once had.

The Hokage let out a sigh, he knew what he was doing was wrong, but it was for Konoha – he had to have ANBU spy on the boy just in case something went wrong, but after what had happened after Naruto's training with Kakashi, he decided it was time to call the ANBU off.

"Naru-"he went to say, beginning to apologise to the boy, before Naruto interrupted.  
"I've came for my mission, I understand Kakashi-sensei will be waiting." He stated in an unusually formal tone. The hokage just let out a defeated sigh and nodded before briefing the blonde ninja, who seemed to want to leave the room.

Naruto walked down the stairs of the Hokage tower, he was still angry at what the old man had done to him, he felt betrayed by one of the few people he could trust, deciding it didn't matter, he let out a sigh before continuing down the staircase, seeing a shade of pink that he recognised, a small smile came about his face.

"Ohayo, Naruto-kun, I heard you were going on a mission today" The cherry blossom said to the blonde with a smile. Hinata's eye twitched angrily 'Naruto-_kun_?' she thought to herself.  
"Oh, you didn't have to Sakura-chan…" Naruto said nervously scratching his head.  
A large tick appeared on Hinata's forehead 'Sakura-_chan_?' before she started breathing in calming motions.

A pair of arms wrapped around Naruto in a warm embrace, without even thinking he returned the hug and looked down at the pinkette who had her cheek pressed against his chest.  
"Be careful…" She said quietly, and felt the blonde nod before she pulled away with a smile.  
Hinata could calm herself no more. "That's a nice vest Sakura, where did you get it?" asked the Fox ANBU.

Sakura looked a little confused before answering with a soft blush.  
"Naruto-kun gave it to me; he doesn't like to waste…" she said, while letting out an embarrassed giggle. Hinata frowned under her mask.  
"Sorry Hinata-chan, if I knew you liked them I would have given you all the other ones that I had at home, but Sasuke-nii said he may as well have them if I was going to throw them away…" Naruto answered feeling a little guilty.

Hinata furiously shook her head, she didn't want Naruto to feel guilty, and she had intended to intimidate Sakura away from him. "I-It's okay Naruto-kun!" She said speaking quickly.  
"Well, I kinda… have to go…" Naruto said awkwardly before backing away and then heading towards the village gates at full speed.

Sakura held up a victorious smirk before walking away, she didn't care what Hinata and Naruto had together, Naruto was her only real friend besides Ino, and sometimes he was easier to deal with as the two of them didn't bicker or argue like she did with the female blonde, she headed back towards her training ground, deciding she would use her spare time to become strong, rather than mope around the house all day- Naruto had inspired her to do so, claiming she could become a great ninja.

* * *

"Yo." Kakashi said along with a wave, the blonde just gave him a smile in return and the two began to walk along side each other."I heard what happened yesterday…with the ANBU, but don't worry about them anymore, the hokage called them off after seeing you had grown strong." The jonin explained.

"Thanks Kakashi-sensei…umm how far away is wave from here?" Naruto asked.  
"Well, it would take around 5 days to get there if it was only the two of us, however we will have to escort Tazuna-san so it may take an extra 3 days." Kakashi stated before pointing to Tazuna who waited just past the gates. Naruto nodded in understanding to his sensei.

"By the way Naruto, that's an intimidating look you got there, so don't be put off if some of the villagers in wave seem a little wary of you." Kakashi chuckled and Naruto looked up at him with a pained expression. "Don't worry I'm used to it." He sighed before the two greeted Tazuna.

"This is my ninja team who are supposed to protect me? The hokage told me I would be getting a group called Team 7."  
The old drunk said a bottle of sake in hand. Naruto frowned at the man, and was about to voice his opinion before Kakashi took control of the situation.  
"Don't worry, Tazuna-san, we are more than capable, I assure you." The scarecrow said giving the man an eye smile, which seemed to ease him a little.  
"Fine, but it's important that I build this bridge!" Tazuna exclaimed, only to get a nod from the ninja, deciding not to pry.

* * *

The three travelled at a slow pace, with Tazuna being a civilian he wouldn't be able to keep up with the two ninja of the group, after walking past a bridge Kakashi glanced at a seemingly harmless puddle while he continued to walk onwards, a little surprised when the blonde in front of him span around, two of his fingers glowing a light blue colour.

"**Raiton: precision cannon!**" the blonde yelled, two of his fingers now pointing towards the puddle as a charge of electricity flowed around his hand, only to form a beam of lightning which struck the water. There was a few moments of silence between the three, Tazuna completely confused, and Kakashi impressed, as the three looked towards the puddle.

Two mist ninja dressed heavily in black appeared from out of the puddle, one was leaning against the other and had a hole in his body just above his heart, Tazuna's eyes widened in shock, he didn't think they'd send someone this early.

"You! How dare you do this to my brother!" the mist ninja said, before de-attaching the chain which joined the two mist ninja together. One of the ninja fell to the floor – lifeless, while the other began his charge towards Naruto, his metal claw cocked back, ready to strike the blonde.

Naruto got into a fighting stance, preparing for the mist ninja, although suddenly the enemy in front of him had been taken care of, and Kakashi was seen tying him to a tree. Naruto came out of his stance and let out a sigh of relief. "Thanks Sensei." he said only to get an eye smile and a nod from the silver haired jonin.

"Tazuna." He stated now serious, staring daggers at the man "We need to talk."

After Tazuna pouring his heart about to the two ninja, telling them that wave is a ruined country, a shell of its former self due to Gato's control over the trading and supply lines, apparently the man hired mercenaries to carry out his orders, and it appeared missing-nin were among said mercenaries. After hearing Tazuna's story, Kakashi labelled the mission as an  
'A-rank mission' however decided it wouldn't be right to leave wave to suffer.

The three continued their journey towards wave country, and everything was calm, until they came to a clearing and a whizzing noise made itself present, as if something was cutting through the air.  
"DOWN!" Kakashi yelled as Naruto tackled Tazuna to the floor covering him with his body, a sudden thud was heard and Naruto and Kakashi arose to see a man stood on the hilt of a giant sword that had lodged itself into a tree.

"Oh, my, my, you are Momochi Zabuza, the exiled ninja of the Hidden Village in the mist." Kakashi said in a mocking tone.  
"I'm guessing you are Sharingan Kakashi." The assassin spoke.  
"Sorry, but I'll need you to hand over the geezer." Zabuza stated looking uninterested.  
"Naruto, you know what to do." Kakashi gestured.

"**Kage buushin no jutsu!**" Naruto announced and three clones appeared surrounding Tazuna, the four Naruto's stood in a defensive stance.  
"Don't join the battle Naruto." Kakashi stated and received a nod as an affirmative, he guessed this new enemy to be a Jonin and wasn't sure he could handle a jonin, not for long any way.

Kakashi peeled his headband away from his eye revealing a Sharingan with three tomoes, showing it was fully matured. "Fight me…" Kakashi said.  
"I'm honoured I get to see the Sharingan I've heard so much about." Zabuza said in his emotionless tone, he looked down towards Kakashi and a thick mist descended upon the area.

"When I was a ninja of the hidden mist, I was chosen to target you… the information about you noted this…'the man who had copied over 1000 techniques, Kakashi the copy ninja.'" Zabuza spoke, but continued.  
"Let's cut the chit chat here… I need to kill that geezer right away."  
"Though it seems I have to defeat you first Kakashi." He stated looking back towards the silver haired jonin.

Zabuza leapt from the tree, sword in hand and landed upon on a small lake, one hand pointing upwards into the air, and another held out just in front of his chest, he began gathering chakra as water swirled around him.  
"**Mist Concealment**." He said before disappearing from view.

The area went silent, Kakashi a few feet in front of Naruto, his clones and Tazuna, then he suddenly started unleashing chakra, which seemed to un-nerve Tazuna even further, sweat of anticipation crawled down each one copy of the blonde's face.

"Don't worry Naruto; I won't let anything happen to you or Tazuna-san." Kakashi said before turning around smiling with both eyes closed.  
"Oh, I don't know about that…" Zabuza challenged as he appeared in between the group of Naruto's, his sword ready to strike. "This is the end." He stated and immediately cut down Tazuna, a large slash appeared across the man's chest, and he fell to his knees with a grunt of pain before falling lifeless to the floor.

Poof.

Zabuza's eyes widened as the civilian disappeared before his eyes and the Naruto squad each grabbed a limb of Zabuza's.  
"Good work Naruto!" Kakashi praised as he ran towards the bound target, he then slammed a punishing fist in-between the assassin's ribs, knocking him back a few paces as the Naruto clones dispersed. Naruto formed a new squad around the repositioned Tazuna.

Suddenly the Zabuza in front of Kakashi dispersed into water and dropped to the floor. 'Water clone.' Kakashi thought before Zabuza re-appeared and cleaved the silver haired jonin in two. To Zabuza's surprise Kakashi then became water and disappeared. Zabuza felt a kunai pressed against his throat as he realised Kakashi had reappeared behind him.

"This is the end." Kakashi mimicked.  
"…Is this the end? … You won't defeat me just from copying my techniques."  
"I understand you copied my water clone jutsu when you had your clone speak, drawing my attention, making me believe it was the real one."  
"…However, I'm not that easy to defeat." The clone said before it disappeared, using his quick reactions Kakashi ducked narrowly evading being decapitated by the huge sword, however the sword stuck itself into the ground and Zabuza used the hilt for balance as he delivered a round house kick to Kakashi's jaw sending him flying backwards.

'Now!' Zabuza thought as he dragged his sword from the earth and ran towards Kakashi, only to be momentarily slowed by a last minute trap Kakashi had laid during his flight. Zabuza then dived into the lake in which Kakashi had landed, and before he could react Zabuza was behind him.

"Idiot. **Suiton: Hydro prison technique**" Zabuza taunted as Kakashi was suddenly trapped in a sphere of water. "Now then, I guess it's time to finish those two." The assassin said looking towards Naruto and his target. Zabuza created a water clone, essentially splitting his strength in half for this purpose and the clone began to walk towards Naruto.

"This'll be over in no time." Zabuza declared looking at the blonde, Naruto drawn a three pronged kunai and ordered the three clones to tighten the defence around Tazuna, Naruto charged forward in a seemingly reckless attack and hurled the kunai straight towards Zabuza.

"Too easy." Zabuza mocked as he knocked away the kunai with his arm guard sending it flying off behind him, a grin appeared across Naruto's face and there was a burst of yellow light before he was gone. Zabuza's eyes widened as he turned around to see Naruto floating through the air, watching as he seized his special kunai and hurled it straight towards the real Zabuza.

Seeing it from the corner of his eye Zabuza knew he had no choice but to dodge, unless he wanted a kunai lodged into his skull, breaking the hydro prison technique he quickly leapt to safety, as he did Kakashi leapt away also – gaining a distance from his opponent.  
"Thanks, Naruto." Kakashi said, who found himself praising the blonde once again, Naruto nodded and jumped backwards, removing himself from the lake and went back to protecting Tazuna.

Zabuza glared at Kakashi who returned the favour, then suddenly Zabuza started forming hand seals, and to his surprise Kakashi formed the same ones – but at a faster rate.

"**Suiton: Water Dragon Bullet**!" The two announced as their techniques sprung to life, the water twisted and turned before two identical water dragons appeared and fought for dominance before cancelling each other out. Zabuza sped towards Kakashi and swung his sword in downwards motion which was soon guarded from Kakashi's kunai.

They leapt back and Zabuza's eyes widened in horror as Kakashi formed the movement he was thinking of before he could even execute it himself.  
'This guy…my movement is being perfectly…' he thought  
"…predicted by him…" Kakashi finished, which again made Zabuza's eyes widen in shock.  
'What? He read what I was going to say in my mind?' Zabuza thought before forming seals again.

"All you're doing is copying. Nothing original." Zabuza said still wide eyed.

"You can't beat me you monkey!"  
"You can't beat me you monkey!"

Zabuza looked on in horror "I'll make it so you never open that copycat mouth of yours again!" before he could finish the technique he saw himself standing behind Kakashi, as the silver haired jonin formed the last seal before Zabuza, his Sharingan spinning wildly as he looked towards the mist assassin. "**Suiton: Great Waterfall.**" Kakashi announced.

A great current formed a tidal wave of water which struck the exiled mist ninja and the current dragged him along with it, destroying any tree's that were in its way, the great current was also causing a large trench to be dug up behind it as it sped along, finally the wave calmed as it held Zabuza against a tree and two well-placed kunai struck him, pinning him against it.

"This is the end." Kakashi stated.  
"Can you see the future?" Zabuza asked.  
"Yeah…"  
"You are going to die." Kakashi replied, preparing to throw a kunai.

Suddenly two objects flew through the air and pierced Zabuza's neck.  
A hunter-nin stood in a tree looking towards the mist assassin.  
"It was true. He did die." The Nin said in an emotionless voice, the Nin had long feminine hair that was pulled up into a bun, with two long bangs either side their face, they wore a mist hunter-nin mask which bore red swirls on it covering their face, the Nin also wore a green turtle neck jumper with a dark blue overcoat over the top. A mud coloured sash was seen around their waist which matched the colour of the Nin's three quarter length pants.

Kakashi jumped down from his spot in the tree and leant over to check for a pulse.  
"He really _is_ dead." Kakashi announced before glaring at the hunter-nin who then bowed towards the silver haired jonin.  
"Thank you very much." The Nin spoke "I was looking for a chance to kill Zabuza."  
"That mask… you must be a hunter-nin for the hidden mist…" Kakashi said to the Nin.  
"That is correct…I must keep the secrets of the village hidden in the mist." The Nin spoke their voice still baring no emotion.

'Judging by their voice and height…I'd say that Nin was around Naruto's age…he's no ordinary kid.' Kakashi thought while his eyes were still locked on to the Nin. Across the clearing Naruto was almost snarling towards the Nin, un-easing Tazuna by his sudden release of killing intent.

Suddenly in a swirl of wind the Nin disappeared before reappearing beside the corpse of Zabuza, picking the grown man up with ease.  
"Your battle ends for now, I must dispose of the body… it holds many of the mist's secrets." The Nin said to the two Konoha ninja.  
"If you'll excuse me." The Nin said before disappearing in a swirl of wind.

Kakashi sighed; pulling down the hitai ate over his Sharingan eye.  
"Let's go Naruto…" he said, as the blonde slowly came to his side, still wary of possible threats as the clones didn't disperse and travelled in a group around Tazuna.

"Our mission hasn't ended Naruto; let's get Tazuna to his house." Kakashi ordered. "Right." Naruto said quickly, his fist still clenched in anger.  
"Sorry about that you two! ... You can rest at my house so don't worry about it!" he declared before laughing awkwardly.

Kakashi continued to walk in the lead before he stopped, surprising the blonde and their client as he fell forward face first and collided with the ground.  
"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto said before running over to the downed jonin, Naruto noticed his eyes were closed and decided to check for a pulse…just in case.  
After finding a pulse and examining Kakashi for wounds he guessed it was from chakra exhaustion, and placed a soldier pill into his mouth, although it wouldn't awaken him from unconsciousness it would help his recovery at least.

* * *

Kakashi laid in the futon that Tazuna's daughter – Tsunami had provided for him.  
"I used my sharingan too long…" he spoke as Tsunami walked into the room.  
"Are you okay now, Kakashi-san?" She asked politely.  
"No, I'll be stuck in bed for about a week and will be barely able to move." Kakashi said that gave over the feeling he was feeling sorry for himself.

Tazuna entered the room along with Naruto.  
"Don't worry; you defeated a strong one so I doubt they'd send another one so quickly…" Tazuna said, still feeling guilty.  
"Kakashi-sensei." Naruto spoke in a pleading manner, at which Kakashi nodded his head.  
"I think Zabuza may still be alive." The jonin said, Naruto let out a sigh  
"You should rest Kakashi-sensei…" the blonde said and his answer was Kakashi returning to his laid down position.

"Grandpa I'm home!" the small boy shouted as he hugged Tazuna,  
"Inari, these are the ninja who helped your grandpa get home." Tsunami said with a smile; however Inari looked at the ninja with a scowl.  
"You should just go home!" Inari shouted towards the two Konoha ninja.

"There's no way I'd just go home, I have to help your old man while he finishes the bridge! Then all of wave will treat him like a hero!" Naruto declared to the boy who seemed to get angrier.  
"There's no such thing as heroes!" he cried out but before he managed to leave Naruto spoke again.  
"Don't act like the lead role of a drama, some bad things may have happened in your life but I can promise you,_ it's nothing compared to my life._" The blonde said through gritted teeth, his fist clenched with rage.

"What do you know? You're just an idiot!" The kid shouted as tears streamed down his face, but to his surprise Naruto opened his jacket a little extra and pointed to his 'tattoo' with his thumb.  
"Do you know why I have this 'tattoo'?" Naruto said in a quiet tone that surprised the room.  
"Naruto!" Kakashi voiced trying to intervene but Naruto waved him off.

"Because ever since I was born all of the villagers, both ninja and civilians have hated me, for something I couldn't even control. They beat me into the ground day in and day out, no matter how kind I was to them or how hard I tried to be accepted. They called me names such as 'demon-brat' and most of them told me that I'd be better off dead…"

'Naruto…' Kakashi thought to himself.

"…That was every day, for nine years of my life, until one day I was found in alley with two knives in each shoulder, then a girl appeared – she was the same age as me- someone I had never even spoke to or met, came over to me while I was pinned up and carved the word demon into my chest… for a reason I don't even know…"

"Though another girl came along, and gave me a glint of hope – she showed that she cared and for once, the first time in my life I thought that there might be a chance I could be happy like everyone else, and then I met Sasuke-nii and didn't have to live alone anymore, I got this tattooed on me, because it shows it's a part of me, but that's all it is, it's not all I am. I'm not some demon like they said I am and I won't accept it!"

"I don't know what happened in your life, it may have been terrible…but, if you give up then the people who hurt you have won, so don't say heroes don't exist! If you've been told heroes can't exist, prove that person wrong! Rise up and show them you won't let them hurt you." Naruto said which left Tsunami in tears, and Inari's mouth was hung open, his tears had stopped flowing as resolve and determination washed over him.

Naruto stood and headed to the door. "I'm going to train." And with that he left them to take in what he had said.

Naruto came to an area that he deemed suitable and began writing seals in four corners of the small forest, before heading to the centre and activating a barrier, to onlookers it would be like he wasn't even there, only people within the sealing would be able to find him.

Naruto closed his eyes, and let out a deep breath.  
"**Rinnegan.**"

* * *

Naruto awoke, the sun's rays were beating down on him, and the fog had lifted from around his 'training grounds', he found himself in the forest, and he had guessed he went overboard like usual – and that ended up with him collapsing.

"You're going to catch a cold if you sleep here." Said a soft feminine voice, Naruto shot up to a seated position and looked at the person, they had long hair straight black hair and wore a beautiful pale red kimono with a white sash tied around their waist, Naruto fought down a blush as he looked at the person.

"A-A-Angel?" Naruto stuttered out, which made the person blush a deep red and turn away.  
Naruto shook his head. "I uhm…what are you doing here? How did you manage to enter?" Naruto asked a little embarrassed.

"W-Well I was here last night, and couldn't seem to get out of the area, so I decided to pick herbs." The person answered while trying to regain their composure. "Herbs?" Naruto asked curiously.  
"Yes, they heal injuries and illness." The person who he assumed to be a girl said with a smile.

"I'm Naruto-what's your name?" The blonde asked sheepishly, only to be met with a smile.  
"Haku…and by the way, I'm a boy." Haku said which made Naruto almost have a heart attack.  
"What are you doing here anyway, Naruto-kun?" asked the boy.

"Training." He stated.  
"Are you a ninja or something?" Haku asked the blonde.  
"That's right!" Naruto said adjusting his headband slightly.  
"Wow, that's amazing…but why were you training?"  
"To be the strongest I can be!" Naruto announced.  
"For what reason?" Haku asked while he narrowed his eyes at the blonde.  
"To be the strongest ninja in my village! So everyone will recognise me for who I am…and not what they _think_ I am." He said while pointing at his tattoo.  
"Are you doing that for yourself… or for someone else?" Haku asked.  
Naruto rubbed the back of his head before answering.  
"For both." He replied.  
"Do you have someone important?" the dark haired boy asked.

Naruto's face darkened at the question, before he lifted himself back up.  
"W-What do you mean?" he questioned.  
"A person is capable of becoming truly strong when they are protecting something they cherish."  
Naruto thought about the question, as he remembered the times he had helped Hinata when they were only young.  
"Yeah, I understand that." He said with a grin.

Haku looked at him with a pained expression as he remembered his own past, until he felt something coming towards him.  
"You're eyes…" Naruto said with an outstretched hand, about to rest it on Haku's shoulder when the boy suddenly jerked backwards, causing his hand to land on Haku's chest.  
Naruto looked at his hand and then back up to meet Haku's eyes, who was now blushing, he looked back towards his hand and squeezed, and as he did Haku let out a silent moan.

"You said you were a boy!" Naruto announced only making Haku's blush deepen.  
"Sorry for lying… a person I knew once told me it would be safer to tell strangers that I was a male."  
Naruto nodded his understanding.  
"Well I guess that explains why you're so pretty." He said before realising what he said.  
"I-I…uhh…erm…I mean!" He stuttered out as Haku giggled.  
"Thank you Naruto-kun, I hope we can meet again sometime" She said as she walked away gracefully, her basket of herbs in hand.  
"…y-yeah me too…b-bye." He said almost to himself as he released the barrier around the area.

As she walked away her face became hardened, knowing where she would next meet the boy.

* * *

**Author's notes: Felt that, that line was a good one to end on! Besides, the whole wave arc couldn't be done in just one chapter now could it?**

**Thanks to all of those who have reviewed, added to Favourites and those following the story!**  
**Tell me what you think, Review – Favourite – Follow!**


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto.

**Chapter 10: Hawk.  
**

* * *

Sasuke woke up in a cold sweat, panting heavily as his eyes retracted to their normal size after previously shooting open, he calmed his breathing and pulled himself back to reality as he looked around the dark, empty room. It had been happening again lately, ever since a few days after Naruto had left for his mission to wave with Kakashi, it was almost as if the Uchiha property he was still living in had taken advantage of his loneliness once more which made staying in the house a painful experience.

Foolishly, he had thought that he had outgrown his nightmares, but it seemed they had crept up on him once again much like solitude, he let out a relieved sigh, thankful that he was no longer viewing the nightmare, he pulled back his blanket noting he would have to calm down at least if he was going to attempt to sleep again, and in his usual manner he went to get a cold glass of water, and then would proceed to take a walk around the village.

After almost gulping down the water that now replaced the fluid he lost from his outbreak of sweat, he headed to the door, and in a move that puzzled him –yet eased him at the same time, he decided to take one of Naruto's spare white jackets, instead of his own. He didn't know why he had done it at first but after putting it on he had realised that his sub-conscious was telling him it would ease his loneliness – which it did, to some extent.

* * *

He found himself trailing through konoha's training grounds, they were all very similar but at this time of night they were suited to his purposes, large open areas that he could walk through without the possibility of being bothered, he entered the next training ground and in the distance saw what looked to be one of Naruto's tank tops, he soon found himself speeding up ever so slightly.

Too his dismay however, there was no blonde hair to be seen, instead pink locks were easily visible even if the girl had decided to 'act like a real ninja' and cut its length in half, or so he had overheard. The girl seemed to have passed out and the area around him seemed to have taken its fair share of damage, he had put this off for too long.

Letting out a sigh he walked over to the girl and gently nudged her arm – despite wanting to punch the girl awake, Naruto seemed to be friendly with the girl now and he doubted he'd take kindly to any negative actions against the cherry blossom girl. He looked down as she started to stir, she looked up at him with weary emerald eyes, and he half expected her to start screeching 'Sasuke-kun' like all the other fangirls did, however she rose to a seated position in a relatively calm manner.

"Sasuke?" she asked not adding the honorific like he guessed she would, although the two of them hadn't spoken since the warning he gave her on their first day at the academy.  
"Why are you wearing that?" He asked in an aggressive tone which he had tried to hold back.  
She looked at him a little confused before realising that he was referring to her tank top that Naruto had given her, and a sudden thought entered her mind. 'I could ask him the same thing! I don't care if he has forgiven me or not, he won't take this away from me!'

"N-Naruto-kun gave it to me…" she replied nervously, she didn't want to anger him any further and didn't know his purposes for waking her in the first place, although she hoped the two of them didn't end up fighting – she was exhausted from training and although she had improved to a strength she didn't imagine herself gaining anytime soon, she figured even at full strength she wouldn't be able to match someone who had been picked for an elite team, especially if the rumours of him and a certain Hyuuga becoming ANBU members were true, even if only spending three weeks in the hands of an ANBU instructor, his strength would have definitely increased.

"Hn." Sasuke grunted before continuing with a scowl on his face, despite desperately fighting against his rage, he really felt like giving her a small fraction of the pain Naruto had suffered over the course of his life.  
"Do you honestly care about him whatsoever? Or are you only friends with him because you have no one else?" The Uchiha said to her showing one of their many trademark looks, it was cold – yet encouraged you to answer and left the feeling that it would be best if the answer given was the truth.

"I don't need anyone else, my parents shun me, and the villagers stare at me like I'm a wanted criminal and the other genin graduates still have little respect for me." Sakura said with determination in her eyes.  
"But…" she stated, "Naruto-kun is a true friend, my parents taught me to believe otherwise and made threats, yet no punishment was enough to make me stop being his friend, and as for the genin graduates, well I doubt I would have strong bonds with any of them except for a select few."  
Sakura felt the gaze upon her ease as she finished her miniature speech, and then saw something she hadn't expected.

Sasuke lowered his hand which gestured her to shake it, she did so, but not too eagerly as she expected something would come with it.  
"If you are truly as close a friend to Naruto as you make out, then I have no choice but to welcome you as one of my own." He stated and before she could answer he walked away.

That one was thing of his mind at least. He walked through the training fields alone with his thoughts once more, and that day kept popping up in his head again and again, and it had tormented him to no end for the last three weeks, the memory of when he met his ANBU instructor who had an all too familiar feel to him.

* * *

_Flashback_

_"Hawk." The man said in an emotionless tone which was expected of an ANBU member, from what Sasuke could see the man had dark brown, long tied back hair and his eyes seemed to match its colour except for the slight difference in shade, the rest of the man's features however remained a mystery due to the crow mask hiding them from view._

_"First of all I am to know very basic information about you. What is your name?" The ANBU asked sticking with the monotone voice._  
_"Sasuke Uchiha." 'Hawk' replied._  
_"I see- My name is Yurushi." Yurushi said which seemed to earn a curious look from the raven haired boy._  
_"Your name is Forgiveness?" Sasuke asked only to receive a nod as an answer._  
_"Do you have any siblings?" The man asked which earned a quick narrowing of the eyes from the Uchiha in question._  
_"Two brothers." Sasuke answered, not seeing how such information was required._  
_"I see- you are a lucky one then." Said Sasuke's new sensei as he smiled behind his mask._  
_"How so?" The young Uchiha questioned although he was thankful for one of his brothers._

_"I have a younger brother, but I doubt he'd ever like to see me again, and if we were too meet a fight would most certainly break out…but as an ANBU you must be willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of the village, even after offering him an explanation of my actions – I doubt he would accept it as the truth." The ANBU spoke though it still lacked any form of emotion._

_"What happened?" Asked Sasuke now curious of what form of sacrifice this man was forced to make._  
_"A tragedy." Was all the man said and before the matter could continue he spoke again,_  
_"You are dismissed, rest up and make sure you are at full strength – training starts tomorrow."_

_Sasuke only nodded before disappearing from view with standard leaf shunshin and as he did the ANBU still present took off his crow mask before removing his light brown contacts, then carefully applied soothing eye drops to each one of his now onyx eyes._

_Flashback end.  
_

* * *

The more Sasuke thought about it the more irritating it became, although he did manage to recognise him from one place, which had eased his torment for a short time, he hadn't finished the whole puzzle. So far, all he had managed to work out was that the crow masked ANBU was the one who had observed the Uchiha compound for all those years, before suddenly stopping a short time before he and Naruto became genin. Perhaps Sasuke was to be monitored from a young age to see if he had what it took to become an ANBU member or maybe it was to keep Naruto in check, he didn't know.

Letting out a defeated sigh he decided to head back, It had been three weeks since Naruto had set off to wave country, he expected the travelling to be long, at least a week to get there and roughly five days to get back, and then there was the construction time of the bridge and there was always the possibility of other situations that would require extra time to be spent. Sasuke was a little annoyed that he wouldn't get to see Naruto before he left for his mission, which happened to be tomorrow.

He was selected to make a vital assassination which would also be his first, although the mission may not be difficult in terms of danger, it would have many steps, first he would have to assassinate the leader of a group of bandits and raid the man's living quarters for a certain file on a man named  
Katsu Shiima, who he would then gain the required information to hunt and kill, which was his primary objective. Along with stealing the file and assassinating the bandit leader – if within his ability he was to eradicate the rest of the bandits as they would no doubt bring harm to traveling merchants on route to Konoha. Although, he doubted where ever this Katsu guy was hiding would be un-guarded adding more to his to-do list.

Sasuke decided to try to go back to sleep as soon as he walked through his front door, and luckily for the raven haired boy he managed to drift of rather quickly and his slumber wasn't disturbed by a nightmare.

* * *

Sasuke awoke and got dressed into his ANBU gear, it was his normal clothing which consisted of a skin tight black long-sleeved shirt and black combat pants, over the top of his shirt was a blood red tank top, over the outfit was the standard dark grey ANBU cloak and his hawk mask hid his face while his hood covered his hair.

He had waited the day away already, and now it was time to leave, darkness had just set, yet it was still light enough to see without a sort of issues, though moving through the forest he would be near impossible to see at this time of day.

He sped off through the trees, jumping from branch to branch through the seemingly endless forest in which the bandits had positioned themselves, they were foolishly close to Konoha and Sasuke came to the assumption that they didn't know just how close they were or had been feeling very brave.  
It only took a short period of time before the camp was in clear view, there was a decent amount of tents, around twenty that Sasuke could see, however they were dangerously close to one another, lined up in rows, and he could use this. However one tent stuck out from the rest – being larger and different in colour, it was safe to guess that this was the leader's tent.

Seeing that the bandits had turned in for the night made his life so much easier, he leapt from the tree and made a barely audible sound when landing, he pushed open the fabric doors of the largest tent and quietly went inside, the man was sleeping quite peacefully and the room smelt of heavy alcohol – which explained why the man was in such a deep sleep. Not wanting to leave his mark in any shape of form, Sasuke gave the man's neck a violent twist before it cracked, and the bandit leader ceased to live.

He cautiously rifled through the files stored on the set of shelves in the corner of the tent, he hated the fact that his back was to the entrance, but thanks to the organization skills of their leader, the bandits had made it easy for him to find what he was looking for, taking the file with him he decided it was in fact 'within his ability' to dispose of the others, he leapt into a tree branch, a safe distance away but would also allow his attack to hit the centre tents with ease.

"**Katon: Grand Fireball Jutsu.**" He muttered after making the correct hand signs, and was soon blowing a large flame from his mouth. The fireball impacted with the centre tents just as planned and quickly spread to the other tents, burning every one of them to the ground, though Sasuke had not stuck around to watch the show and was well on his way to his next location.

* * *

It appeared what the ANBU already knew about the man was correct, mostly, the information he knew was that there would be enemy ninja, all of them being mercenary ninja of low rank who had found working for Katsu Shiima would make them a lot wealthier than petty D-rank or even C-rank missions at their respective villages, that meant at worst Sasuke would be facing off with Chuunin level ninja, however their rank wasn't the dangerous part.

Checking over the file he had found a sizeable amount to be guarding the certain stronghold that his target was staying in, it also stated he had more men at his disposal, around eighty genin and twenty Chuunin, which was a sizable force for a man who was not all that well known – in fact he was only noticed due to the sizable amount of ninja he had employed and the rumours spread of him organizing bandit camps within the area, and were attempting to seize control of Konoha's supply lines, probably to allow a stronger hidden village to launch an attack.

Sasuke came to the large building, it had three stories and he quickly saw his entrance, though it would be much to easy, he guessed that the balcony situated on the third floor would be heavily guarded, though the windows of the stronghold had iron bars over them meaning that he would not be getting in that way. He sighed, four genin around the side entrance, two of which were trembling and obviously inexperienced – he had found his entrance.

The file Sasuke had found stated that the man travelled with ¼ of his troops at all times, which seemed to be a threat to the bandits not to try anything, this meant within the stronghold there would be around twenty genin and five Chuunin, which could definitely become difficult.

He edged his body to the corner of the stronghold, his back was pressed against the cold surface as he sidestepped around it, and soon he would strike. Quickly allowing the adrenaline to fuel him, he darted round the corner, grabbed one of the genin by back his neck and used his free hand to cover his mouth, then pulled him back around the corner out of sight, a swift neck twist ended the poor ninja's life and he fell limp against the floor.

Sasuke picked up the body and retreated to the forest, before re-positioning so that he was directly facing the side entrance, by now the three genin remaining where incredibly paranoid and were looking around hoping to see their team mate. Sasuke rustled in the bushes, grabbing their attention and had made a clone of their team mate that walked out into their plain view. Sasuke had already placed the body down in the correct spot; all that was left was to 'kill' the clone.

He hurled two kunai which seemed to have struck the clone; however they went straight into the back of the already deceased genin, Sasuke let out a pained filled grunt, only just loud enough for the three remaining to hear, drawing them in as planned, they ran towards their team member without any form of plan. Unfortunately for the genin, a kunai pierced through the neck of each of them with deadly accuracy, they couldn't even scream as they fell to the ground, joining the fourth in eternal slumber.

Sasuke dragged the bodies into the forest, concealing them from view, then he perched himself on a nearby branch, deciding to wait it out and see if the genin guards were replaced, if they were he would simply evaluate the strengths of the new guards and if they proved to be too much he would attack a different entrance, although he had guessed the guards on the outside were always going to be genin.

To his surprise however, Sasuke had overestimated the man or so it seemed, the side entrance did not gain any new guards, but decided it he would be best to attack the other three entrances as well, if he left them until after he had killed Katsu it would no doubt lead to mistakes, such as being overwhelmed by sheer numbers, he would be easier to track and also Sasuke knew not to underestimate genin, given the opportunity in which he didn't have the element of surprise he might be defeated by one or two if they matched Konoha's standards, besides he was technically only a genin himself, he worried slightly at his next thought, he had never fought a Chuunin to the death before, five might really give him some trouble.

Once upon a time he would not have thought of such things, he would not have considered the fact that although he was strong, they were technically the same rank of him, no, before he would have simply acknowledged that he was an Uchiha, and they were not, which meant he had won by default. After he had met Naruto however the boy had literally beat it into him not to underestimate enemies telling him 'I don't want you ending up dead like an idiot just because you're running around with your Uchiha pride!'

However before he launched his swift attack on the genin, he noted that these lot were also inexperienced, complaining and not focused on the task at hand – they may have been genin, but they were not the same as him.  
"**Raiton: lightning senbon.**" He barely whispered as eight blue senbon appeared within his hand, two between each finger. In one swift motion he had thrown all eight, again striking at the neck hoping that the victims would be unable to scream from the weapons piercing their throats. They fell to the ground and wouldn't be getting up.

Sasuke had noted that this approach was working, but was taking its sweet time, and time was not a thing he could waste, he jarred open the now cleared entrance ever so slightly – three tomoes of his sharingan spinning wildly as they scanned for chakra signatures, although he had found none. He slipped himself through the smallest possible gap and silently closed the door behind him.

He had decided to head towards the side entrance he had already cleared, that way if there was any guards that would have found him, he can take them out as he would have, but this way he would have the element of surprise which was too big of an advantage to miss out on. He crept through the hallways, not raising any alarm so far; he guessed from the size of the stronghold, that the guards were indeed thinly spread.

Deciding to expand on that theory he hid in a small storage room and looked through the small keyhole for any patrols as he made his assumptions. He guessed that there was the sixteen genin outside, four guarding each of the ground entrances, on the inside first level which he had navigated without being disturbed would be empty, and the four remaining genin would be near the staircase leading to the second floor, which when removed meant Katsu's numbers would have suffered a nasty blow.

The Chuunin could be positioned in a number of ways, if Katsu was paranoid, they would all be close to his sleeping quarters, all five of them, which if they were then Sasuke would be in trouble and would perhaps have to take out Katsu in a different, less clean fashion – although he had an idea in which he could trick the Chuunin – if they were anything like the genin he faced, they would be the be those barely capable of being named Chuunin and not the high, near jonin he was expecting.

Another way the Chuunin could be positioned is one of them guarding the top of the staircase from the first floor to second, meaning he would have to fight to progress, if this was to happen he would presume that two more Chuunin would be guarding the second to third floor staircase and the final guards would be positioned outside of Katsu's room.

That would wait however, after spying through his keyhole he had determined there was no patrols, and he took the long route – avoiding the staircase, and arrived at the back entrance, the four genin outside totally oblivious, and they stayed that way as they fell limp to the floor with shuriken littering their bodies, Sasuke closed the door behind him and swiftly moved to the last entrance.

He cracked the door open ever so slightly, crouched down, and proceeded to pull a small purple ball out of his holster, he rolled the ball along the ground and after a set number of seconds it went off, fatal poison danced at their feet and by the time they realised they had been breathing in purple gas, their lungs were already filled with the toxin, leaving only four genin remaining.

Coming closer to the staircase he decided he really didn't like this, he had hoped it would be a slip in slip out job, much like the bandit leader. 'Guess that would be too lucky.' He thought to himself as he continued down the corridor. It seemed he was wrong about the positioning of the genin; two were at the bottom of the staircase and presumed the other two were waiting for him at the top of the stairs.

He couldn't believe how bad the genin here were, they stood one either side of the double doors, each with their backs against the wall, Sasuke armed each hand with four shuriken and kicked open the double doors, sprayed the sides of their bodies with the weapons before muffling their screams, two remained.

He was growing impatient, this was taking a long time to get anywhere significant, though he couldn't trigger the alarm at any costs and could definitely not get into a full-fledged ninja battle, the kills had to be quick or his identity was at risk as well as his mission, upon hearing an alarm Katsu could be removed from the building taking the balcony as an exit, and Sasuke would be none the wiser. His only hope was that he spoke the truth when he said ¼ of his troops, as well as when stating the number of his full attack force.

It suddenly startled Sasuke when he had realised, he had killed eighteen genin, and at least twenty bandits, though he presumed it to be two bandits per tent, raising his bandit kill count to forty, after all this he hadn't even flinched and had no time to continue the thought as he plunged his remaining kunai into the two genin who had their backs to the staircase they were guarding – god these guys were good.

He snuck around floor two, looking for anyone he may have to take care of, but during his time looking around he found something that could be of use, the pillars that held the building together were in plain sight, so he quickly attached an explosive tag to each one, if he were to be seemingly unable to assassinate Katsu after all this, then he would bring the whole damn building down if he had too.

Sasuke saw a Chuunin at the top of the staircase, his chakra was well beyond that of those useless genin and he was watching the bottom of the staircase like a hawk, ironic seeing as the hawk was watching him, looking back to the body of the genin he devised a plan.

Sasuke walked over the staircase casually, now transformed matching one of the deceased genin his disguise would hold long enough for what he required.  
"Hey, some bandit leader is giving the north entrance trouble he has brought around forty men with him and if we don't hurry they'll all die!" Sasuke said with panic laced in his voice, the Chuunin nodded an affirmative and sped down the stairs and past Sasuke.

The Chuunin was caught with his back to the enemy and paid the ultimate price, a slashed throat. Sasuke was thankful that his plan had worked but doubted the other Chuunin would be so easy to get by, seeing how there really shouldn't be any of the genin on the third floor. Then Sasuke had a plan, sprinting back the way he came he rushed out the door and into a tree high enough to peer into the room that the balcony led too. He saw two chakra signatures similar to the Chuunin he had just taken care off. After carefully noting the position of the room he ran back inside and was soon back on the second floor.

He soon came to the room directly underneath his Chuunin targets, he had to fight back a snigger at his ingenious plan, after cutting a small, unnoticeable hole in the ceiling, he dropped a fatal poison bomb in the room before he quickly exited, with one thing on his mind, that the poison smoke would raise up through the small hole he had created and soon the two Chuunin would meet their end. After hearing two soft thuds, he presumed the plan a success, now he had only two Chuunin left.

The building was empty enough for Sasuke to be less cautious now, he ran up the stairs to the third floor, and headed to the room he had filled with poisonous smoke, luckily it had cleared by the time he made it to the room, so he managed to get past the room without trouble.  
He almost let out a sigh; in the room ahead was three signatures, two Chuunin and Katsu, Sasuke formed a clone which kicked open the double doors and stormed into the room earning the attention of the one of the Chuunin that leapt out to confront him.

"Nice back." Sasuke said with a smirk, and now there was one. Sasuke walked into the room eyeing the other Chuunin while Katsu shot up in a panic and looked like he was about to run for dear life.  
"Sit down." Sasuke ordered as the man looked into his eyes, a weak genjutsu was casted on the man as he fell on his behind after his sense of balance had been altered.

"You damn brat!" The Chuunin shouted as he charged towards Sasuke with a kunai who blocked it with his own, the two blades clashed however the Chuunin saw an opening and kicked Sasuke in his left side causing him to leap in the same direction. The Chuunin charged at him with a co-ordinated display of taijutsu, though soon found himself being pushed back as the Uchiha's sharingan span wildly as it was anticipating his movements.

The Chuunin leapt away from the taijutsu match and started forming hand-seals; Sasuke became wide eyed at the idiotic move he planned on doing.  
"**Doton: Stone fist!**" The Chuunin shouted as a fist made of earth appeared and was soon flying towards Sasuke, who had narrowly managed to dodge as it crashed through the wall behind him.

Sasuke charged at the Chuunin trying to keep things short ranged, he had a wide range of ninjutsu but the room would soon be destroyed if the two started dishing them out, and there may be important documents lying around, the Chuunin leapt away from the fray once again.  
"Katsu-sama, call for back up!" the Chuunin voiced.  
"They're all dead." Sasuke stated calmly and the Chuunin became un-nerved.  
"Who sent you!?" He interrogated, hoping to get some answers from the hawk.  
"The Tsuchikage." Sasuke lied hoping to get a response.

"Lies! There is no way we would be betrayed!" the Chuunin shouted.  
"So you're working with Iwa?" Sasuke asked the now angered Chuunin,  
"Even if we are you won't live to tell the tale! Now who sent you?!"  
"I am an ex-ANBU member, now I work for a certain missing-nin of Konoha…Let's just say, he wanted to test the strength of your troops, any weak ones were to be dispatched." Hawk said in his practiced monotone voice.

"Tchh! Orochimaru has… Katsu-sama! We must get you to safety and call off any plans immediately!"  
"Orochimaru? ...So you are working with a missing nin as well as Iwa…" Sasuke stated.  
"Dammit! I'll kill you!" the Chuunin cried out.  
"Did you really think taking control of the supply lines would allow you to over throw a village?" Sasuke asked this time with a condescending tone.

"Of course! Konoha would be powerless to fight against Suna, Iwa and Oto!" The Chuunin admitted  
"You'll be surrounded by a group of at least forty men shortly anyway, a group of ours have set up camp not far from here." the Chuunin said smirking.  
"Those were eliminated before I came here, in fact they didn't even have chance to wake up." Sasuke said, reverting back to his monotone voice.  
"Damn weaklings! I'll kill you!" the Chuunin bellowed as he charged at Sasuke.

This man had information, he was no interrogator, but he had learnt a certain move which had been used against him and knew he would have told any secret to make the painful memories stop. His tomoe spun and merged together before converting to a completely different stage of sharingan, he blinked, the Chuunin looked him in the eyes and it was over.

"**Tsukuyomi.**"

The Chuunin found himself in a different universe, the sky was many shades of red and held a glowing full moon in place, he looked around but his movements felt slow and he found himself becoming dizzy just from glancing around the strangely coloured world, suddenly he found himself on all fours, his head leant over a wooden platform, a dangerously sharp blade above his neck, easily capable of beheading him.

"You're going to tell me what I want to know." Sasuke said "This first punishment will be merciful, but shall you refuse…"  
"I'll never tell!" The Chuunin spat. Suddenly an insane amount of pain ran through his body as he felt the sensation of what it would be like to be decapitated.  
"Tell me what you know." Sasuke stated.  
"You'll have to do better than that!" The determined Chuunin shouted.

Suddenly he was pinned to a large wooden wheel and in front of him stood Sasuke, next to him was a table decorated with many kunai. The Chuunin saw himself multiply again and again, as did his tormentor who all picked up a kunai at the same time, all taking aim at the same time, and the knives all pierced the Chuunin at the same time.

There was a blood curdling scream of pain released into the world of Tsukuyomi and before the man could regain his composure they struck again and again, and after fifteen consecutive strikes, which had been multiplied to feel like thousands, the knives stopped for a brief moment.

"Are you ready to tell me what you know?" Sasuke asked. This wasn't exactly his idea of a good time.  
"Goto hell!" The stubborn Chuunin said before panting for breath, still recovering from the immense pain.  
"I am able to keep you in this world for three days, that's right, 72 hours." Sasuke informed only for the chuunin's eyes to widen, he must have been here at least an hour, but even if he had he doubted that he would last another seventy one hours.  
"71 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds to go." Sasuke said as the Chuunin screamed in a horror as another barrage of knives hit him.

Sasuke blinked, then the Chuunin fell to the floor traumatised, he got what he wanted. Sasuke pulled out a kunai and finished of the last remaining Chuunin, now all that was left was the man he came for.

He looked down at the cowering man in disgust, he was the type of rich scum who just got anything they wanted through money, he was beyond chubby and although dressed in nightwear he stunk of cheap cologne and his hair had some form of product used on it which only served to make it look greasy.

The man trembled as Sasuke came nearer.  
"Tell me what I want to know." The ANBU asked.  
The man nodded his head up and down furiously and even gulped in fear, under his mask Sasuke frowned at how this pathetic man had come up with the plan of blocking the supply routes.  
"T-There was a plan f-for Oto, S-Suna and Iwa to attack Konoha, but the Tsuchikage threatened to withdraw u-unless the supply routes were closed o-off first, t-that is why Orochimaru came to me and suggested I r-round up the bandits in the area to help me succeed." The man said, the fear for his life making him stutter.

"What else?" Sasuke demanded  
"A-All I k-know is they planned to attack d-during the Chuunin exams t-that will be held in K-Konoha." He said hoping he would somehow be spared.  
"You've served your purpose." Sasuke stated and before the man could beg for his life he was dead.

Sasuke searched the room before finding several important documents, such as letters and information on when the attempt to gain control over the supply lines would take place, Sasuke also found the location of Katsu's other strongholds and no doubt the hokage would send squads to deal with the remaining troops. He exited the building by taking the balcony, before the explosive tags he had set went off and the building fell to the ground. After completing his mission he raced back home with precious information.

Sasuke appeared in the Hokages office in the early hours of the morning.  
"Reporting in Hokage-sama, I have some bad news…"

* * *

**Author's notes: Next time will be Hinata's mission, much like the first three chapters I decided to cycle through each character, and don't worry Naruto's mission in wave will be resumed after.**

**Thanks for reading!**


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

**Chapter 11: Fox.  
**

* * *

"You called Hokage-sama?" Said the ANBU member in the room awaiting her orders, she had suspicions that she would be receiving her first mission, especially since Sasu- 'Hawk' had received his. She had heard of the details of his mission, and hoped she wouldn't have to kill so many, and if possible she would like to avoid killing altogether – but killing is something an ANBU often cannot avoid.

She was happy when she was positioned on the tracking segment of ANBU instead of one of the more violent positions, it made her realise she would also be less likely to have to make some form of self-sacrifice, although the tracking squad had a tendency to hunt after those ninja who tried to leave the leaf, she could only hope that none of her friends attempted to leave…not that she had friends other than Naruto and Sasuke.

Suddenly her mind wandered, as it always did when she thought of that name, the image of him would appear in her mind and she would remember the warm feeling she had so long ago when they laid together just watching the clouds, she wished every day could be like that. Her thoughts changed about the blonde, no longer was she reminiscing but instead she found herself worrying, he had been on a mission for a long period of time now, around four weeks or so if she remembered correctly. Which she did, she could tell you in minutes how the blonde had been missing from her, but she had the decency to keep that to herself.

That was when a new thought approached, one that she didn't like at all. The idea of having to betray Naruto for 'the sake of the village' almost made her tear up, but in the presence of the Hokage she knew better than to do such a thing. Of course, if the time did come when she was forced to betray Naruto, she would without hesitation, while it would be painful to do so – such decisions were usually made for the safety of many, who was she to selfishly deny them their safety?

She was snapped out of her thoughts by the quiet murmurs of her ANBU instructor and the Hokage, while she couldn't hear them clearly she managed to decipher a few of the words, those heard were  
not ready, Inuzuka instead ,Hiashi and disappointed, all in all, not a very nice bunch of words when formed into a sentence about Hinata.

She let out a defeated sigh, she was underestimated far too much, she wished her father would realise her strength – she thought she had made progress when he was 'delighted' that she was picked to be an ANBU member at such an early age even though he practically demanded that since Sasuke was becoming an ANBU member, she was capable of becoming one also, although it was something that even Neji hadn't managed, yet here they were, all of them holding her back.

"Fox." The hokage announced gaining her attention; she looked up hopefully awaiting orders.  
"You won't be receiving a mission just yet, although your instructor has deemed your tracking ability up to standard; however this mission is too important and will require an ANBU Captain to complete it." He explained to her, although she couldn't help but hope she would be assigned a different mission.

She had already read the briefing for this mission though, and didn't believe an ANBU Captain would be required, although a little risky, she was more than sure she could get the job done. The briefing was given to her the day after Sasuke had reported to the Hokage, with valuable information.

Her mission was to track and if possible, eliminate the man Uzuko Yori, who fled the village after finding out that his partner Katsu Shiima had been killed and the plan to gain control of Konoha's supply lines had quickly been derailed thanks to a single ANBU member. The man was said to be a spy from Iwa, and upon hearing that the supply lines would remain in Konoha's control he was to report any information he had learned about Konoha in hopes that Iwa could find a weakness.

Again Hinata found herself thinking about things and becoming distracted from the things in front of her, maybe this was one of the reasons she was 'not ready' for such a mission, she was brought out of her musings by the Hokage.  
"You are dismissed Fox." He said softly, she gave a nod and shunshined out of the room, she was now in the crowded streets of Konoha, being mid-day the civilians were out in storm, going about their daily business, completely unaware that if Sasuke missed the vital information he obtained, that they could of been in a great deal of danger.

* * *

She sighed heavily, she thought civilians must have it easy, but soon remembered that if the village was attacked and she couldn't fight she would end up feeling useless and would no doubt be petrified. Seeing as she had been dismissed Hinata now had the rest of the day off, deciding to get away from the crowded area she headed to _their_clearing.

It didn't take her long to arrive at their clearing, the clearing that Naruto had taken her to after the first day of the academy; although it was a simple place and was not exactly special, she treasured it. She sat down on the wooden bench, the same bench that she and Naruto had made together one day, it was their strange way of marking the area as theirs and also provided a couple of hours of entertainment.

She couldn't help but let out another defeated sigh as she stared up at the wandering clouds, the pleasant blue sky didn't reflect her mood in the slightest, nor did the sun which was warming the land beneath it. She was in _their _spot, yet _he _wasn't there, thoughts of Naruto arose in her head, she could only hope that he was okay, while she hadn't even got the chance to spar with him she imagined that he would be powerful, he had a certain aura around him that screamed out strength and he always carried himself with a certain confidence.

She remembered asking Sasuke about him two weeks after Naruto had left on his mission to wave, although Hinata and Sasuke didn't really talk much, she managed to hunt him down to talk about Naruto- before the talk she was worried to say the least, until she asked Sasuke how strong he was and he answered:  
'He's probably stronger than me normally but when using the sharingan I'd say we were probably equal.'

That for some reason made her worries run to the hills, she knew Sasuke was strong, not exactly how strong, but she knew that he was no push over after hearing about his mission from the hokage and besides Kakashi was with Naruto so he would be perfectly safe.

Hinata stood up, she had some where she needed to be, after all there was certain pink haired kunoichi that was getting close to Naruto, she would be able to understand what Hinata was going through and Naruto encouraged them to be friends, with a swirl of leaves and a poof of smoke Hinata was gone from the clearing.

* * *

Sakura heard a set of loud knocks hit her wooden door, as always her parents were out, in fact they had moved out, but Sakura didn't want to accept it, she was now living alone – apparently her family couldn't bare to live in the same house as her and they left…which meant no one was going to answer the door.

Sakura had been feeling particularly lazy today, she had already woke up several times but decided to go back to sleep each and every time, perhaps it was the sheer fact that she had nothing better to do, her body was sore from going over the top in training, but she wanted to be strong for Naruto, he believed in her and she wasn't going to let him down.

"Uggghhh…" she moaned as she willed her head from the pillow and slowly managed to pull the rest of her body up along with it, she could feel her hair sticking up all over the place, but she didn't care, maybe it wouldn't look so bad. She hurriedly got dressed into her latest outfit.

It consisted of Naruto's black tank top with the white swirl design (she asked for a couple more of them seeing as he no longer wore them) which clung to her frame loosely and carried on a little past her waist, since Naruto was a little taller than her, under it was a pair of thigh length crimson kunoichi shorts that unlike the tank top practically hugged her legs. On her right leg was a standard black weapons pouch and to complete the outfit she wore black high socks with the standard black ninja sandals.

She no longer wore make up after Naruto had told her she looked better without it, for some reason the need to put it on was no longer there, that and she found herself thinking it was a waste of time and effort seeing that no one paid her much attention anyway, well not any positive attention, her social life was doomed after the first day of the academy, she even took out her earrings and stopped wearing bracelets. However she now wore a circular silver chain necklace that was similar to Naruto's, seeing as it worked well when he wore the black tank top she decided to _borrow_his idea.

There was another set of knocks on the door and she let out a sigh, in one part of her mind she looked forward to the company, but on the other side she didn't expect them to stay very long – it was probably just a form of message, like having to goto training or going on a mission.

With a mumble and a groan she lifelessly walked towards the stairs before heading down them, every step feeling like an effort in itself, but soon enough she arrived at the door. She unlocked it with a sigh before opening it to see her visitor; she really hoped it was Ino, knowing that Naruto was still away on his mission.

Not Suprisingly it was just an ANBU.  
"What can I do for you ANBU-San?" She asked politely, now feeling a little embarrassed by her 'bedhead', she really should have brushed it down, especially since she heard the ANBU giggle, although she couldn't help but wonder where she had seen that mask before.  
"It's me Sakura." Fox said before pulling away her mask to reveal a smiling Hinata.  
"Oh Hinata! Come in! I thought I recognised the mask" Sakura replied before stepping aside to allow Hinata to go into the living room,

When out of sight she leaned over and ruffled her hair before jolting back up, with hopes that it was now at least somewhat tame she followed the Hyuuga into the living room.  
"How have you been Hinata?" She asked trying to get some form of conversation going, she knew Hinata was shy and probably wouldn't have said anything until she was spoken too, although the girl became quite viscous around Naruto.

"Ano… w-well I haven't had much to do lately… so I've been quite bored, what have you been u-up to Sakura?" Hinata asked, her nervousness coming back, she never had spoken to Sakura without Naruto being there.  
"Urghh… sorry Hinata, I'm still tired from training yesterday…" Sakura said before plopping down on the sofa next to her.  
"I've been bored too, Ino has been training with her team and father a lot lately…and Naruto is away on his mission, so lately I've been either resting in bed all day studying ninjutsu in comfort or in the training fields…what about you? Being an ANBU must be hard I guess." The pinkette said while gazing at Hinata's fox mask.

"W-Well the t-training is hard because they said I have to be fast to catch the enemy…" Hinata said while looking down at the interesting carpet.  
"Hinata? Are you alright?" Sakura asked after seeing the girl looking away.  
"It's just … I don't want to be given a mission where I might have to go against Naruto-kun…" She said just above a whisper, Sakura's eyes widened in shock and she frowned.  
"What do you mean _against _Naruto? Is the village planning something?!" She asked aggressively.

"I-I don't know…I don't think so… but they might someday…" Hinata said still maintaining her mouse like volume. Sakura's frown eased up as she calmed herself,  
"Hinata, you had me worried, baka!" she said playfully causing the Hyuuga to smile and rub the back of her neck.

"Ano…but you know about well…u-uhm…" Hinata mumbled  
"You mean the kyuubi?" Sakura said while scratching the side of her head as if it were a normal topic.  
"Y-yes…what if they do something to Naruto…he's been acting differently lately…" she said gaining the pinkette's attention.  
"What do you mean acting differently?" Sakura asked in a now serious tone.  
Hinata shook her head "I can't say…someone might hear…it's nothing bad, but he seemed a little angry before his mission, although being with Kakashi helped him…I guess he sees him like a sort of uncle."

Sakura sighed, Hinata had built up the conversation and she had expected something terrible to be wrong with Naruto only to find out that he was a little pissed off, she doubted that was the real reason, her encounter with Sasuke before his mission was strange for the pinkette too, Sakura shook her head clear of the thoughts, but they couldn't help but come back.

Sasuke and Naruto's friendship had always been strange, even since her fan girl days when he had arrived at Sasuke's spot by the lake, it's more like they're lifelines to one another, Sasuke didn't seem to be taking the time away from Naruto too well…especially since when he found her he was wearing his jacket.

"Sakura? Are you alright?" Hinata asked when she saw the pinkette violently shaking her head.  
"O-Oh…sorry I guess I zoned out, I was just thinking about…stuff." Sakura said before continuing  
"Do you really think they'll turn you against Naruto?" Hinata nodded slowly and looked towards the ground "but…I mean you're his teammates aren't you?" Sakura asked.  
"N-No…it's a secret but… there isn't really a team seven…Naruto-kun was singled out… even when he was training with Kakashi-san he was being watched by an ANBU member…" She said to the cherry blossom.

"What do you mean there isn't really a team seven!?" She bellowed before Hinata raised her finger to her lips "Shhhh!" Hinata hissed, which made Sakura giggle.  
"My mother is a member of the civilian council…our house has privacy seals on it, not even ANBU know in case they decide to go against the village." Sakura said with a smile.

Hinata let out a sigh of relief, at least they could talk freely here, and sometimes holding secrets can be hard.  
"W-well…when me, Naruto-kun and Sasuke-san went to the training grounds to meet Kakashi-san we were told there was no team seven and then me and Sasuke were told we were to be ANBU members." Hinata said cautiously, after hearing this Sakura was stroking her chin with her thumb in a thinking pose.

"That's the reason I am not on a mission with him now, the mission Naruto-kun is on should have been a full squad mission, and although it was ranked a 'C' by the client, the Hokage secretly agreed to accept 'C' rank payment for an 'A' rank mission in order to help wave…which is the mission Naruto-kun is on now with Kakashi-san."  
Hinata explained which caused Sakura's eyebrows rose in shock.

"An 'A' rank!? Isn't that dangerous?! That means enemy jonin could attack!" She screeched  
"Y-Yes…apparently shortly after they left the village on the mission Kakashi-san sent a messenger dog telling the hokage that two Chuunin from the hidden mist had attacked them and proposed the mission be cancelled as it wasn't really a 'C' rank but the hokage already knew that." The Hyuuga heiress explained as Sakura nodded in understanding.

"But why is that a bad thing? Doesn't that mean Naruto is really strong, if he and Kakashi can be sent on such a mission?" Sakura asked interrogating the Hyuuga for more information about the subject.  
"Exactly." Hinata spoke softly, Sakura let out an 'oh.' In understanding as it seemed to piece together.

"He's being monitored?" She asked quietly which earned her a nod from Hinata, who then leaned a little closer to Sakura.  
"Apparently…he has learnt the Hiraishin…" she whispered to the pinkette,  
"Well…it is his father's technique…" Sakura said as if it was the most normal thing in the world which made Hinata jerk back in surprise, her wide eyed expression causing Sakura to giggle.  
"T-The Yondaime is…?" Hinata asked and Sakura just nodded before retreating into the other room and grabbing the only picture of her and Naruto before rummaging through a drawer, when she found the old Bingo book she was looking for she returned to the living room.

She held up the book on the Yondaime's page and held up her picture with Naruto…Hinata looked shocked to say the least, but when Sakura set the book on the coffee table and proceeded to cover up Naruto's whisker marks with her thumbs as she held it up for Hinata to see, she couldn't help but giggle as Hinata's jaw hung open.

"H-How didn't I notice?!" Hinata asked almost punishing herself for not noticing the resemblance, Sakura just shrugged her shoulders  
"Well I guess you just never thought about it…anyway just because Naruto is being monitored doesn't mean its bad…maybe they're looking out for him?" She asked hopefully.  
Hinata just shook her head slowly "If they were looking out for him he wouldn't have got all those beatings as a kid." She said with anger causing Sakura to wince as she remembered something painful.

"T-True…but that doesn't mean you'll be turned against him?" She asked hesitantly, so far Hinata had answered all of her questions with a rather negative answer.  
"W-Well…team seven was branded an 'elite' team, and both I and Sasuke-san aren't being monitored… which is suspicious." She replied, again being a negative answer.  
"What do you mean?" Sakura asked with her head tilted slightly in curiosity, a habit she had picked up from a certain blonde.

"Me and Sasuke-san where entered into the ANBU…and the _whole_ team was branded as 'elite' not just me and Sasuke-san…there are people monitoring Naruto-kun…but no one monitoring us…It's like they don't trust Naruto-kun." Hinata said summarizing their talk slowly, Sakura huffed.  
"So….? Just because they don't trust him doesn't mean they're going to attack him?" Sakura asked still not seeing where the Hyuuga was going with this.

Hinata sighed in defeat. "Basically…Sasuke-san and I are being trained to combat Naruto-kun…I am a tracking unit and Sasuke-san is an assassination unit…" She said as Sakura eye's widened in understanding.  
"So…if Naruto-kun was to ever leave the village, it means that I could find him and Sasuke-san could…w-well…assassinate him." She said with a hardened tone over her last words.  
"B-But…Isn't Naruto strong?! He's out on an A rank mission! …" She pleaded against what she was hearing.

"Sakura…when Sasuke-san reported to the hokage I was in the office…apparently he killed twenty genin and five Chuunin without a scratch on him…" She paused to let that information sink in as Sakura released a breath she didn't know she was holding in. "Naruto-kun is strong, even Sasuke-san said they are around equal when he uses his sharingan, meaning without it Naruto-kun would be stronger…b-but…I-I… I would b-be fighting him too…" Hinata said almost tearing up at her last words.

Sakura shook her head not wanting to believe it "So you two are going to kill him!?" She asked also tearing up. "I-If we're forced too…although… I doubt Sasuke-san would go through with it, he'd probably turn against the village…" she said quietly but gained Sakura's attention nonetheless.  
"Then what about you!?" She asked angrily but Hinata shook her head slowly.  
"The hokage…has control of certain seals in the Hyuuga compound, if I don't obey orders my family will all be punished…" She said with disgust.  
"That's horrible!" Sakura screeched as she clenched her fists, it seems that there is more to Konoha than meets the eye.

"The best I could do is fake my death…but that doesn't mean they wouldn't hunt Sasuke-san and Naruto-kun…" she said softly, a hint of regret lingering in her voice as if she was certain it was going to happen. Sakura just sighed.  
"While it is believable…I doubt it would come to that, besides…even if you tried to track him…what if he left a seal in which he could Hiraishin to in the wave country? That would give him a huge lead that no one could track."  
Hinata nodded in agreement "But…they'd just search the whole element nations until he came back…and I doubt they would kill Naruto-kun now that I think about it…they'd probably send him to be interrogated until he no longer had a free will." She stated as Sakura was seemingly trying to control her rage but she understood what Hinata meant, the village wouldn't want to lose something as powerful as the kyuubi and anyone who could use the yondaime's techniques would be sought after.

"W-wait…If Naruto is on a mission, and Sasuke has had one…why haven't you?" Sakura asked which caused Hinata to wince, the only reason she was at Sakura's house in the first place was because she didn't have a mission of her own.

"T-They said the mission w-was too important…Sasuke-san found out some important information while on his mission…some people were trying to take control of Konoha's supply lines, and when the village was weakened, Iwa/Suna and another village were apparently going to attack…although the plan was called off by Suna and Iwa when they heard the plan to control the supply lines failed."

That startled Sakura a little…the fact that there could have been an attack; she would have had to fight even if she had only been a genin for such a short time.  
"Well it's a good job! I can't imagine fighting off all those ninja after only being a genin for such a short time…" Sakura said a little embarrassed.

"Ano…Hinata…do you, well, do you know if Naruto-kun is safe? … I mean…you are in ANBU and you said he was being monitored so…" Sakura asked, effectively changing the subject, Hinata seemed to perk up at that and nodded.

"Y-Yes… our last message we received was that Naruto-kun and Kakashi-san faced a jonin called Zabuza Momochi an ex-member of the seven swordsman of the mist…"  
"…Apparently Kakashi-san got caught in some water jutsu prison, but Naruto-kun managed to free him and in the end Zabuza was defeated, although something strange happened, a hunter-nin apparently finished him off and left with the body…" Hinata explained.

"B-But…aren't Hunter-nin's only meant to take the head and seal the body away? ...If there are jonin attacking Naruto we should tell the Hokage, they will need back up." Sakura said as she thought about facing a jonin level shinobi or possibly more than one.

Hinata again felt the need to explain everything again to the oblivious pink haired kunoichi.  
"The hokage has monitored Naruto-kun and Sasuke-san for a _long_time, ever since Naruto had moved in with Sasuke and Naruto was monitored before that."

"The only reason they didn't introduce him into the ranks earlier was because Kakashi requested that he joined at a later age. Originally he was going to be registered as a genin at the age of five until Kakashi-san argued against it, then at six he was going to be added as a Chuunin…but again Kakashi-san argued against it." Hinata explained.

Sakura looked shocked "H-He was Chuunin level at six years old?…but that means when…"  
"That's right…when you did _that_ he was perfectly capable of fighting off most attackers, in fact he rescued me twice from a group of ninja that were after my byakugan." Hinata interrupted.  
"B-But then…why?" She asked with regret laced in her voice, as she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Simple, he was raised to be a weapon of the village; it wasn't until he became friends with Sasuke that he opened up even a little." Sakura nodded in acceptance of that answer she could see how the village would want him to be a weapon especially considering his 'condition.'  
"B-but why was Kakashi against Naruto joining the ninja ranks and why did it matter if he argued against it? He's just another jonin isn't he?" Sakura asked now thoroughly confused.

"No…Kakashi-san was an ANBU captain…and the reason he argued was because well…I guess there's two reasons after what you told me… Kakashi-san was the yondaime's student and also Kakashi-san was considered a genius and a powerful one at that..."

"Kakashi-san was a genin at the age of five after attending the academy for one year, at the age of six he was a Chuunin and at the age of thirteen he was a jonin and was fighting in important missions during the third Great shinobi war." Hinata said feeling almost like a history teacher at this point.

"W-Wow…a jonin at thirteen… and I've only just made genin…still that doesn't explain why he didn't want Naruto to join the ninja ranks." Sakura said placing her index finger on her chin.  
Hinata sighed "At a young age being a ninja can completely ruin someone's mental health, Kakashi-san was an exception due to his extremely mature nature, also Kakashi-san wanted to be Naruto-kun's sensei meaning he would have to quit being an ANBU captain for at least five years so that his identity was safe…" Hinata 'taught.'

"Well…at least some one strong is with Naruto…" Sakura said softly, Hinata looked back to her and gave an enthusiastic nod before thinking to herself.  
'I hope you're okay…Naruto-kun.'

* * *

**Authors Notes: Yay! Crappy chapter ending! Probably a crappy chapter altogether! But seriously this was a hard one to write as I wasn't sure how to make ANBU Hinata act, especially on a mission, she hasn't been a member long enough to be influenced by them yet. Next chapter is Naruto in wave, I promise it will make up for this one.**

**I considered sending her on a mission as well but decided on something else, besides there was a lot of plot suggestions in this chapter so hopefully it didn't end up dull. Also the last chapter was pretty much without character-to-character interaction so I guess this is the opposite.**


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.  
(A/N: Kyuubi Naruto will act like Hollow Ichigo, especially the voice.)

**Chapter 12: Wave II.  
**

* * *

Naruto looked around, the thick mist clouding his vision, the bridge under him was so close to completion but apparently it was to be scarred with battle, the fog around him made seeing even the floor below him difficult, so looking at the enemy a few feet away placed a slight strain on his eyes, enough was enough, Naruto decided he didn't like mist after all.

"**Fuuton: Great Air Cannon!**" He announced as he built up wind chakra in his lungs before releasing it in the form of a compressed ball of chakra, he fired it towards the enemy and as expected they leapt out of the way, however its true purpose was to clear the mist before it spread any further, and fortunately for the blonde it had worked.

"Good work Naruto, I'll go after Zabuza, be careful." Kakashi said before Naruto nodded an affirmative and charged Haku, startling the girl with his speed he decided to make use of her sudden vulnerability and began a deadly taijutsu dance, starting with a straight kick to the gut which knocked her back a few steps. Still a little winded Haku was unable to guard against the solid uppercut that knocked her into the air, not finished with his onslaught, Naruto span and using the momentum as an added force, drove both of his elbows behind him which collided with Haku's ribs causing the girl to fly back a short distance.

Quickly recollecting herself she stood in a defensive stance, expecting Naruto to already be attacking again, she was surprised to say the least when he was also stood in a defensive stance.

"Well Kakashi, It looks like you've got yourself a good weapon there, but that brat is no match for him." Zabuza spoke but was quickly interrupted by the charging form of Kakashi, he got into a defence position and readied himself for Kakashi's attack

"I won't let you down Zabuza-sama!" Haku announced before charging towards Naruto, striking with a series of three kicks all aimed high towards the blonde's face, Naruto barely managed to parry the first two kicks but the roundhouse to his gut connected leaving him staggering backwards. Quickly throwing up his guard, his arms managed to absorb most of the damage from the next powerful kick before attempting to counter attack.

The two were locked in a taijutsu battle, each mercilessly throwing kick and punch towards the opponent, seizing an opportunity, Naruto caught Haku's small fist in his palm and struck back with a punch to her ribs winding her, he followed up with a strong kick which sent her skidding backwards.

"Looks like I'll actually be able to release these." Naruto said after revealing his Gai approved weight seals. "**Release!**"

In a burst of new found speed Naruto charged Haku taking her completely off guard and managed to land multiple punches to the body, he then struck with a kick aimed at the side of her head but Haku managed to duck and in a sweeping motion, knocked Naruto off his feet, not letting up she grabbed his airborne form by the ankles and thrown him over her shoulder, slamming him down onto the hard bridge.

Quickly rolling to the side Naruto managed to narrowly evade a barrage of senbon and leapt to his feet, and hurled two explosive tagged kunai towards Haku causing her to jump to the right, anticipating this, Naruto finished his hand seals.  
"**Katon: flame burst!**" As the name suggested a burst of flames shot out from Naruto's outstretched hand heading straight for Haku as she landed, seeing the gushing flames she flipped through one handed hand seals before shouting out her technique."**Suiton: Water wall!**" Haku's counter consisted of a 6ft wall of water defending against the harsh flames as they soon fizzled out of existence while evaporating the water.

Using the clashing techniques as a distraction Naruto charged, jumped, and landed a harsh flying kick to Haku's jaw causing her to loose balance before Naruto unleashed a barrage of taijutsu against the ice user.

"**Kage Buushin no Jutsu!**" Naruto yelled causing four clones to appear, taking advantage of the still dazed Haku; they surrounded her on four sides, when she came to her eyes widened in shock as she saw she was surrounded, thinking on her feet she slammed her hand on to the floor below her.  
"**Hyoton: Rising spears!**" A sheet of ice flooded the area and before the Naruto clones could re-act they were pierced by a set of frozen spikes effectively 'killing' them, the real Naruto was out of the radius and was already flying through hand seals.  
"**Fuuton: Wind blade!**" Naruto made a slashing motion with his right arm and soon after a crescent shaped blast of wind was hurtling towards Haku seeing she could not counter in time she dodged and thrown senbon, one hit Naruto dead in the shoulder and the other piercing his thigh.

"Now!" Haku commanded to herself as she rapidly closed the distance between the two of them  
"**Hijutsu: Crystal Ice mirrors.**" She stated and suddenly after the water moisture in the air began to form mirrors, twelve were created encircling the two at ground level and floating above them was another eight mirrors also in circle formation however the final mirror was facing directly towards the ground.

After the mirrors had taken their igloo like shape Haku did something that shocked Naruto, she pressed her hand slowly against the mirror before she disappeared into it, then before he knew it every single mirror with in the formation were reflecting Haku, Naruto took up a defensive stance and could only wait to see what this new technique dish out.

* * *

"Well it looks like its game over for that brat; no one has ever escaped that technique." Zabuza said as his sword clashed against Kakashi's much smaller kunai."Naruto won't be beaten so easily." Kakashi said, staring the other jonin in the eyes as he managed to push as side the huge sword, and in an instant he had slashed open the ex-mist Nin.

Suddenly a thick mist appeared right before his eyes and quickly spread across the bridge, looking around Kakashi noticed that Zabuza had vanished.

"Honestly Kakashi, you didn't expect me to only have one way to deploy the mist concealment did you? How naïve." Zabuza taunted, his voice seemingly coming from all directions as he had activated his 'silent killing' technique. Kakashi quickly moved his Hitai ate to stop it from covering his sharingan only to hear a mocking laugh.

"Even that eye won't save you now." The mist nin said before slashing at Kakashi's left shoulder which was barely countered as Kakashi slashed back Zabuza was already gone, his jonin instincts telling him to duck was all that saved him from being decapitated as he felt a few of his silver locks be sliced off.

Hastily looking around for Zabuza he was once again taunted.  
"You see Kakashi, you are fighting with your eyes and that is why you will never beat me."  
"What are you talking about the mist affects you as we—" he said before being interrupted upon seeing Zabuza a few feet away from him, stood calmly with his eyes closed, yet somehow he seemed to be looking at Kakashi.  
"There are more senses than just sight." Zabuza said as Kakashi leapt back just in time, but still received a deep gash across his stomach.  
"Dammit!" Kakashi grunted while looking down at the wound, before narrowly evading another one of Zabuza's attacks.

'Think Kakashi, think! How can I beat him without seeing him?!' he thought to himself before reluctantly closing his eyes which nearly got him killed as they forced themselves open and his body – seemingly moving on its own, blocked the strike with his kunai before it was knocked away from him.

Leaping back to formulate a plan Kakashi thrown down two smoke bombs and hid within it, placing explosive tags around himself in case Zabuza decided to follow him in. As intended Zabuza soon appeared, sword in hand, but before Kakashi could react he brought down the oversized blade, giving him a life ending blow.

Zabuza's victory was short lived however as the Kakashi in front of him poofed into nothingness, still having his eyes shut he wasn't aware of the danger until it was too late, he heard several fuses burning away before four explosions took place, barely getting out of the smoke in time, he took some of the blast to his left side tearing up his arm and leg.

"Where've you run too rat?!" Zabuza grunted as he 'looked' around for Kakashi before hearing a poofing noise which he guessed to be Kakashi, only to find himself being hunted down by a pack of nin-dogs, which was definitely not part of his plan.

"Defeat you with something other than vision, hmm? It's not wise to give your opponent advice." Kakashi said with a 'matter of fact' tone as his dogs sped towards their target.

* * *

"Shit!" Naruto spat, another two senbon embedded in his stomach, the beatings he was so used to helping his pain threshold greatly as he looked around, trying to follow Haku's movements, however after seeing that hadn't worked the last few times, if the senbon sticking out of his body was a source of evidence, then he had to try something else.  
"**Kage Buushin no jutsu**." Naruto said as two clones appeared looking in different directions.  
"Those won't help you here. You will be defeated, give up. I don't wish to kill you, but to accomplish the dreams of another; I will kill my heart and become a ninja." She spoke in a monotone voice.  
"Grrr…Like hell I'd just give up!" Naruto announced, still looking around the 'arena' of ice, waiting for the Nin to strike.

A blur of movement was seen flickering from a mirror behind Naruto and sooner than he could dodge another pair of senbon flew towards his neck. Seeing the needles one of his clones grabbed him by the arm, swung him in a circle and launched him towards the blurring movement.

Naruto cocked back his fist as he flew through the air to his now visible opponent and when within distance he let loose, his fist slamming into the unprepared mask with great force that launched the body attached to it across the bridge, slamming into one of the mirrors.

Stumbling back into the mirror behind her the ninja deemed herself safe, but that move wouldn't work twice, and if the blonde was as good as she thought he was then he'd know it, as if reading her thoughts the two clones standing by his side dispelled.

"It seems you got lucky, I can assure it will not happen again, I ask you once more, please – give up." Haku said with a slight tremble in her voice although this just seemed to enrage Naruto, his chakra flaring uncontrolled.

"Why?! Why do you go against your own beliefs for others?" Naruto snarled, as he pulsed with rage  
"People shouldn't destroy themselves for others! It's not right!" Naruto cried at one of the many mirrors.  
"Would you not if it was for the sake of someone precious?" Haku said which apparently hit a nerve; Naruto gritted his teeth before staring back at the mirror.  
"If they force you to go against yourself…they are not worthy of being called precious." Naruto spat out in anger.

"I see, but you and I are different. Zabuza-san is my only precious person, he took something that no one else needed and gave me a purpose. I am his tool and I shall not fail him." Haku said as her monotone voice broke revealing her soft, gentle voice.

Once more Naruto's eyes widened in shock upon hearing the voice, and edged slightly closer to the mirror as if struggling to believe something.  
"H-Haku? ..." He asked quietly, the sound almost drowned out completely by the sound of charging dogs.  
"I guess I do not need to wear this mask any longer." Haku said as the mask slid away from her face to reveal her identity.

Then something in Naruto snapped.

His eyes flickered a dangerous shade of red and instantly his hands were upon either side of his head, clutching it as if to stop it from exploding, he writhed around screaming out in anguish and crimson whips of charka illuminated the ice mirrors, swirling around the small area until in one fast movement they receded and poured into Naruto.

His head snapped back, his arms fell limp as his stood staring up at the highest mirror, his trembling legs the only thing keeping him upright as his whole body shuddered. Then his head snapped forward in an almost inhuman movement and he was staring towards the mirror that contained the real Haku, his red eyes peering into it as a face splitting grin came across his features.

"**Heh!**" Naruto shot out, not breaking his stare.  
"**This was all that was giving me so much trouble? My, my, how embarrassing.**" Naruto mocked and now looked completely calm before grinning wildly.  
"_**Like something like this would stop me." **_He said, unleashing a terrible amount of killing intent.

In a blur Naruto was upon the mirror before slamming his fist into the centre of it, only allowing Haku seconds to escape into a different mirror. Haku looked at the boy in front of her, his fist still implanted in the mirror.

"These mirrors are indestruc— that can't be!" She cried out as the mirror shattered into pieces.  
"**Man, that's too bad… I thought you were going to say they were indestructible.**" Naruto taunted  
before rushing another mirror and destroying it within an instant.

Haku was breathing heavily in the mirror she managed to flee to. 'How can he just tear them apart as if they are nothing?!' she thought to herself, submitting to a fear she had long forgotten.  
"**Really… is this it? I guess you suck after all! Ha!**" Naruto said still using the arrogant/ carefree tone, before he shown a fierce grin.  
"_**Like I'd let someone precious to me allow themselves to be nothing but a tool!" **_Naruto said in momentary control.  
"**Ha-Ha! Stop hiding in those mirrors already!"  
****"Fine not coming out!? I guess I'll just have to break them all!" **Naruto announced before red chakra swirled around his outstretched hand. His head tilted to the side, as he stared down his nose at the opponent. Rings forming in his red pupils.

"_**Sorry! This demon chakra doesn't like me holding back!"  
"Hahahah! I know! I'll make it up to you! Here I've got a present for you!"  
"Shinra…" **_Naruto said under the influence of the demon chakra altering his red chakra swirling around the blonde's hand suddenly shot down the length of his arm and left his hand glowing a bright crimson.

"_**Tensei!"**_As soon as the word left his mouth Haku leapt backwards outside of the arena of crystal mirrors.  
A pulse of gravity chakra flowed through the air as the crystal mirrors offered little defence against it; as soon as they were struck they began to crack and a short time after they smashed under the force.

Not giving the petrified Haku a chance to recover he buried a back fist strike into her rips causing her to arch forwards onto his arm, withdrawing his fist he left her bent forwards in pain as he executed a jaw shattering scissor kick that launched the girl high into the air.

In hot pursuit Naruto disappeared before reappearing behind his target embedded his elbow into the neck of his opponent, launching her back towards the unforgiving bridge. After impacting with the hard surface Haku let out a cry of pain, her whole body trembling as she stretched out a weak arm in attempt to push her body in to a standing position.

Her eyes widened in shock as she felt her body now weightless before she realised Naruto was clutching her by her overcoat and had lifted her so that she was at his eye level. He just stared in her eyes for a while, which only helped to unnerve her already trembling body.

"_**Stop with that shaking shit!" **_Naruto said as he looked away and spat before returning his stare to her eyes.  
**"Well?! Now what?! Huh!?" **He bellowed causing her to jerk back in fear.  
"**I don't see that piece of trash helping you!" **He said which caused Haku to scowl  
"Don't you dare talk about Zabuz-"  
"**Go ahead, I'm standing right here. Feel free to stop me.** **But I have a question.**" Naruto said leaning over so that he was inches away from Haku's ear.  
"**What happens, when…?**_** A better tool comes along?**__" _Naruto whispered as Haku let out a breath she didn't know she was holding in, before being violently shook in Naruto's grip  
"**Well!? What happens to you!?" **He shouted as Haku's body went limp in his arm, giving up completely.

"B-But…b-but…" She stuttered out "Y-You are right…I have failed Zabuza-san, I am to be discarded. Please kill me, I have been defeated."  
"**You really are an idiot Huh!? I told you, I won't let you act like you're just some tool!" **Naruto said giving her another shake.

Their attention was soon caught by a loud screech followed by thousands of chirping birds  
"**Chidori!**" Kakashi shouted as the lightning around his hand came to life he gripped his wrist and charged towards the captured Zabuza.

"I am sorry Naruto, I cannot die just yet." Haku said before disappearing in a crystal ice mirror. As Naruto turned to watch Zabuza be impaled, the sound of pierced flesh echoed through his mind as he saw Haku, mouth wide open in a silent scream of pain, eyes a loss of their usual colour, she arched forward, body limp, onto kakashi's outstretched arm.

Kakashi slowly removed his arm from Haku and placed her down carefully on the bridge before turning back to Zabuza.  
"Hmph. A good tool until the end." He stated, unknowingly enraging an already unstable Naruto.  
Zabuza was about to lock eyes with Kakashi when a new figure appeared in front of him.

"**Demon of the mist?** _**I'll show trash like you what a real demon is." **_The blonde said and before Zabuza could even think of reacting a claw pierced his stomach but didn't stop there, after impaling the man his slowly tore more and more of the man's flesh away as he cried out in pain. Naruto withdrew his hand from the man's insides and turned to the leaf jonin behind him.

"**Oi, Kakashi-sensei… don't miss**_**." **_And with that he ran over to Haku, the red draining from his eyes leaving them a clear sky blue as he looked down at the dying Haku.  
"Shit! She won't last long!" Naruto analysed before going through the hand seals for one of the few medical ninjutsu he had learnt from scrolls alone.

A pool of green chakra appeared within his hands, as he held them over the wound, after around thirty seconds he was about to attempt to close the wound with Fuinjutsu to preserve the body until reaching a hospital when he noticed something in his peripheral vision. Zabuza's sword, the Kubikiri Houchou.

Soaked with Kakashi's blood the broken blade was absorbing the metallic fluid and regenerating, which is when Naruto's eyes snapped open as he raced to get it, after collecting it he was by Haku's side, a single tear had fell from her eye as she store up at the blonde who was desperately trying to save her.

"N-Naruto…I-I'm s-sorry…" she said in a raspy voice but Naruto just silenced her as he placed his index finger over her lips and shook his head slowly, with that her eyes fluttered and she slipped into unconsciousness. Naruto let out a pained sigh before turning to the sword, the tool in which would save Haku's life.

Pulling out a vial of ink and a brush he quickly slapped on many simple symbols along the blade of the weapon before looking over them to double check, with a satisfied nod he channelled a small amount of chakra into the blade, effectively bringing the seal to life.

"**Fuinjutsu: Ability locate!**" The sword started glowing a blue colour as chakra flowed through it before it started releasing a soft buzzing noise which told Naruto the technique had worked, he picked up the blade and held it over Haku's wound before stabbing her in the same spot.  
**  
**"**Fuinjutsu: Ability Reverse!" **The blood that was repairing the blade from piercing Haku's body resided back into Haku and the blade slowly began crawling into the wound, the metal slowly deteriorating as it merged with the injured girl, and soon the blade had completely sealed the wound although it the sword kept on merging with the girl.

Before Naruto could pull it out, the metallic skin that was sealing Haku's wound began converting into human skin and flesh and soon enough it looked as if Haku had never been injured at all.  
Naruto slumped forward happy with the progress and checked the girls pulse.

She was alive. He had done it.

He looked up and turned to see Zabuza on the receiving end of a Chidori, his body unresponsive as Kakashi let him fall to the bridge.

"Well, well, it looks like the great demon of the mist and his little follower couldn't even kill an old man." Said a short, fat man who stood in front of a large amount of mercenaries.  
"Well at least I don't have to pay those assholes." The man named Gato said as he and his men walked along the bridge.  
"Find and kill the bridge builder." He ordered as his men charged forward.

"Naruto!" Kakashi alerted as he got into a fighting stance, soon joined by the blonde they blocked the path when they heard battle cries from behind them. A large crowd had gathered with make shift weapons and armour all rallied behind Inari.  
"We won't sit back and do anything any longer!" the small boy announced as the villagers charged.

"**Kage buushin no jutsu**!" Naruto bellowed as he effortlessly created fifty shadow clones, Kakashi followed suit  
"**Kage Buushin no jutsu!**" He yelled as he matched Naruto's fifty and they now greatly outnumbered the opposing army.

Nodding towards Kakashi who then nodded back the two faced the army who weren't intimidated by sheer numbers and decided to do something about this new attack force.  
"**Fuuton: Gale force!**" Naruto yelled as he blown a huge gust of wind towards the enemy.  
"**Katon: Fire stream!**" Kakashi announced as he spat out a fire that soon combined with Naruto's wind jutsu.

The two combined attacked soared through the air killing a large number of the mercenary army leaving others quivering in fear or running away like their lives depended on it, soon all that was left was a very frightened Gato who Naruto then picked up by the collar and hurled towards the villagers who would no doubt give him a very 'fair' punishment.

Naruto's mind fell back to Haku as he ran to her side, her wound had closed but she was still unconscious, carefully picking her up bridal style he decided he would take her to the hospital, he couldn't tell her condition from his little medical knowledge. He looked towards Kakashi who had just given Zabuza a 'sea burial' by throwing him over the bridge. Kakashi let out a sigh and did his best to put up an eye smile

"Come on Naruto; let's go back…you did well today." Kakashi said as he put a firm hand on Naruto's shoulder while the two walked back to the village, upon getting back Kakashi had collapsed from exhaustion but was soon taken back to Tazuna's house where he would be able to rest in peace.

Seeing Inari, Naruto managed to give a sad smile before crouching to the boy's eye level.  
"Pffff… and you said there was no such thing as heroes." Naruto said playfully before standing back up and walking to the hospital, Inari let out a chuckle as a tear fell from his eye, looking towards the sky he whispered.

"I did it dad! I protected the place I love with my own two hands just like you told me too!" and with that he ran after his grandpa who was slowly walking towards his home.

* * *

Several hours had passed after the doctor had examined Haku, he was nothing short of amazed at the whole process, the sword was apparently reconstructing the cells in Haku's body In order to regenerate such a deep wound and the doctor couldn't even give an estimate on when she would be back to normal.

With Kakashi severely exhausted from the use of so many shadow clones as well as the strain of the sharingan he would be on rest duty for a few days at least and without any remaining soldier pills, Naruto couldn't even help the recovery process, although he was much too focused on Haku to think about leaving wave.

He looked over her sleeping form and moved the stray hairs falling upon her face, he smiled, she looked at peace somewhat, he sat back in his chair and went back to his new habit of gently caressing her hand with his thumb, he couldn't help but find that it put him at ease and still couldn't manage to grasp just how soft her hands were.

He sat there, strangely relaxed about the whole situation, enjoying the silence of the room, the lights were off and the blinds were drawn closed, giving the room a soothing darkness that invited comfort as well as a strange feeling of peace. Switching back to Haku he couldn't help but lean over and brush the stray hairs from her face once again, as if it were his duty to do so without fail.

Seeing a slight twitch of her lips as they curved upwards slightly after he brushed away her falling locks made a smile form on his own face, he soon found himself forgetting how bad her condition was, as he looked towards her peaceful, sleeping form.

Shortly after fatigue started effecting him, after not resting after the battle and the hour growing late he found himself fighting against sleep, trying his best to stay awake but eventually even he succumbed to a peaceful slumber.

He woke up, a strange feeling on his forehead, after lifting his head up slightly he realised he had fallen asleep on the hand that was stroking Haku's, he sat up straight then stretched for all he was worth, letting out a load yawn, before remembering why this room would be dark even in day light.  
There was no one in the hospital. Most of the villagers had formed an assault on Gato's company, with the intentions of over throwing it and taking everything for their own, which could take at least a couple of weeks leaving Naruto to take care of Haku alone.

He heard the rustling of bed sheets and looked down to see the girl rolling over several times, seemingly in discomfort, although it wouldn't be from pain due to the long term pain killers the doctor administered. Offering what little support he could he resumed his previous activity, holding her smaller hand in his own while carefully stroking it with his thumb as if it was a fragile object that would shatter under the slightest force.

She turned over to lay on her back and seemed to relax into the touch or so Naruto thought, but soon enough he had to pull himself away from the action as he needed to refill Haku's water drip, so after a while patrolling the hospital he found the correct room and soon headed back. He went about changing Haku's water drip with new one, if it was one thing Naruto didn't expect to be doing while on his mission it was 'working' in a hospital, but he wasn't complaining.

He soon found the hours passing at an alarming rate, his peace and tranquillity all but disturbed by the sudden battle with slumber but soon felt himself become submissive, and this time he happily rested his head on the side of the bed, Haku's hand still in his own.

"N-Naruto-sama…" he heard before his eyes shot open at the sound of Haku's tired voice, he looked up to see her eyes barely open but managed to bring a smile to his face which was soon returned by the tired girl.  
"Y-You…saved me…" she said as she strained herself even further, Naruto just nodded his head and brushed her cheek with his hand.  
"Shhhh, it's okay, you've got to rest if you want to get better." He said in a soothing tone, Haku managed a slight nod and closed her eyes again as she felt his thumb tracing her hand, the feeling she had come to enjoy as she found herself relaxing once again, she muttered something inaudible before falling asleep one again.

Naruto let out a relieved sigh and decided to go back to sleep himself, though he considered the fact that Haku had awoken to be a good sign. The morning soon came, shaking his sore muscles from his strange seated sleeping position Naruto stood up and decided he would stretch his legs by walking around the hospital and look for anything useful he could take to tend to Kakashi. He had left a shadow clone with Haku, just to be safe.

After locating a supplement drip and a water drip he decided to head towards Tazuna's house, he doubted that Kakashi would have awaken just yet, and if he was without food and water for too long even he would die. Upon arriving at the house he half expected a young Inari to slide open the door for him and lead him to Kakashi's room, but he remembered the villagers were still away. Sliding open the door himself he walked towards a room with a futon laid down and a flat out Kakashi sprawled across it.

Setting up the drips he decided there wasn't much else he could do, however he removed Kakashi's flak jacket and cleaned up the bloody slash mark across his stomach before doing his best with limited healing abilities to help the wound to close, he would have to check on it again so that it didn't become infected. Seeing that the rest of his clothes were bloody and battle worn he carefully cut them off before unsealing some of the jonin's spare clothing and re-dressing him, but decided to leave out the flak jacket so that it didn't make him uncomfortable.

Seeing his check-up was complete, he carefully laid Kakashi down before pulling the blanket over him and taking his leave. A quick jog later and he was pushing open the clinically white hospital double doors and couldn't help but be reminded of Konoha's hospital as he walked towards Haku's room. Dispelling his clone with a nod as it's memories returned to him, he resumed his position in the visiting chair next to the bed although with sore muscles, he had decided tonight he would be sleeping on the other hospital bed in the room.

Leaning back in his chair he was left to his thoughts. '_I can't exactly just bring her back to Konoha_.' He thought to himself while rubbing the sleep from his eyes, which was true, he couldn't just take her back to Konoha, although her identity was safe thanks to her hunter mask, she would have to list her abilities to be added to the ranks of Konoha and no doubt she would be put up as breeding stock to add her kekkei genkai to the village's collection.

For some reason though, Naruto had no intentions of having her join Konoha's ninja ranks, though he had to admit it was an _awful shame_that the ANBU monitoring him was 'caught in the cross fire between the battle of the two jonin' for getting too close to Naruto, although the truth of the matter was that Naruto couldn't have the man reporting that he was able to use Fuinjutsu and had saved an enemy ninja from certain death. Whoever was sending those ANBU after him, whether it was Danzo or the Hokage or even the council, they would be suspicious of him – even more so than before, but at least they couldn't outright ask him why he killed the ANBU member that was secretly monitoring him.

He shook his head clear of such thoughts and went back to focusing on Haku, he kind of hoped she would wake up again at least he would have to tend to her needs, where as he was feeling rather useless at this moment in time but he didn't let it show, he was thankful for this quiet time, he was able to be left alone with his thoughts and he had a lot of them. His mission in wave had went above the estimated time and with Kakashi bedridden as well as his duty to care for Haku it was going to be a while before he would be leaving wave.

The reason behind his time worries was due to the fast approaching Chuunin exams, although he wasn't sure if he would be taking them or not, he half expected to be field promoted on his return from this mission seeing that he remembered the council argue with Kakashi for at least four hours about how he should be made a Chuunin at six years old, surely if they weren't going to test him then they wouldn't test him now, however things had changed – he now had a 'team' and was almost certain that he would be working with them throughout the Chuunin exams.

The first reason was that it would maintain the façade that team seven was in fact a full three-man cell instead of the actual Naruto/Kakashi combo, the council wouldn't want other jonin instructors questioning why a genin was working alone with his jonin sensei as his only other teammate.

The second reason could be that something was planned for the Chuunin exams such as an attack against him in an attempt to get rid of him and the kyuubi once for all, which he didn't think was the case, he was a powerful weapon regardless of whether they trusted him or not. His other belief was that he along with his team would be targeting teams from a certain village that was 'growing to powerful and attracting to many customers', which meant his team would be making sure that the certain village looked weak due to having no members pass the tests.

His final reasoning was that he was simply to become a Chuunin, and was to be the third member of a squad with Hinata and Sasuke, although he assumed while working on a squad with them, they would still be in full ANBU uniform which could be a little weird, but ANBU are a regular occurrence in his life so he'd manage.

He couldn't help but feel as if he was missing something, something to do with the area for the second stage of the Chuunin exam, 'the forest of death', while it was labelled as a training ground, it was permanently 'out of bounds' which was suspicious in itself as the only time it was opened for use was when Konoha hosted the Chuunin exams once every four years. Other than that the place wasn't even monitored as if they expected people to leave it alone, although Naruto had seen that strange woman with the trench coat heading there numerous times.

That was a thought that suddenly grabbed his attention, he hadn't noticed before, but she never seemed to be with anybody else and found himself wondering if she was the 'Snake-bitch' that people so 'lovingly' called her. If that was the case he could use that to his advantage, being friends with a jonin didn't have many downsides, even if he had to be slightly manipulative at first in order to gain her friendship, it would be worth it, even if deceiving people in the village that would go as far to trust him would make him feel slightly sick with guilt, he would pull through as the results would certainly be worth it in the end.

He looked up, breaking his chain of thoughts and walked over to the drawn blinds, spreading them open wide enough to look out he saw that it was already night time, no wonder he was starting to feel tired, although he did wonder if this room had some sort of time seal active as he couldn't seem to be able to comprehend just how fast the time had passed by.

He let out a long yawn, '_Yup, time for bed.' _He thought as he staggered over to the room in the far corner, after glancing at Haku one last time he climbed under the covers and rolled to face the wall, the cold bed soon warming and inviting him to sleep.

Her eyes slowly eased open before closing again then in a slow movement opened fully, she could see the white ceiling through blurry vision, a slow blink later and she was staring at the white ceiling which was now clear to see. She frowned; she couldn't feel him, her hand felt strangely cold.  
She moved eyes to look to the left, all she could see however was a window with the blinds drawn was shut, and although the room was shrouded in darkness it didn't affect her vision, so she decided to check the right side of her, with as much haste as she could manage, she tilted her head so that she laying on her right cheek.

She analysed the area, a vacant white, plastic visiting chair and a tightly shut door. _He wasn't here._  
"N-Naruto-S-sama? ..." she whimpered her eyes studying the area for movement, her panic building up as she found herself clenching her blanket in her hands.  
"Naruto-sama?" she asked in a louder voice than before, she waited silently for a few seconds before her panic rose past the breaking point, she began weakly lashing around trying to force her body to stand, though found she was able to do so yet she still thrashed in the bed.  
"Naruto-sama!? Naruto-sama!? Naruto-sama!?" She shrieked in desperation.

Naruto's eyes cracked open at the loud cries and he shot to his feet, pained by what he saw he rushed over to her bed, the figure in it still crying out his name, with that honorific that he would definitely telling her to remove when she was healthy. As soon as he was by her side, not wanting to shock her with sudden touch he decided to try and soothe her with his presence.

"Shhhh, it's okay Haku-chan, I'm here, and it's okay." he said softly as he continued to chant things which he hoped would put the girl at ease, almost instantly Haku stopped thrashing and lay in place on her back, letting out a staggered breath, Naruto leaned over the bed so that he was well within her vision and smiled down at her.

Haku's lips curved upwards, _he was here_. "N-Naruto-sama…" she muttered, as she store up at him, he pressed his hand against her soft cheek, stroking it slowly which made her let out another breath of relief.  
"I was only in the other bed; I think you woke up the whole country!" He said chuckling, trying to lighten the mood somewhat, a smile blessed Haku's features although her throat now felt terribly sore from all of that shouting.

"Try to go back to sleep, you're doing great, you'll be better in no time." Naruto said with a smile as he turned to return to his bed. As he did he felt a soft hand stroked his arm in a failed attempt to grip it, he turned back to Haku whose arm now dangled off the bed, he took her hand in his before slowly guiding it back to sit on top of the blanket.  
"P-please stay, Naruto-sama…" she whispered while she backed a way slightly as if trying to hide herself. Naruto let out a sigh at her retreating form and pulled back the cover slightly before looking back to her to check if he was sure he understood what she meant, but he was only met with expecting eyes.

Pulling it back further he slid in to the bed, finding it was already warm unlike the other, now unused bed, he rolled on his side to face Haku. Seeing he entered the bed she instinctively rolled and wrapped her arms around him then nuzzled into his chest, refusing to let him go again. Naruto was a little taken back by the movement at first but soon returned the gesture as he roped his arms around the girl and began reaching up the back of her hair, carefully untying her bun, he allowed it to flow freely down her back, as it did so he began combing through the dark brown locks.

Upon feeling the affectionate movement she couldn't help but try to nuzzle even further into his chest as she let out a sigh of relief, quite comfortable with the new situation, she had never experienced affection like this before, it felt warm and she couldn't help but think she was in the safest place in the world. Soon the comfort became too much and her eye lids became heavy as they fell, closing and opening several times until she gave up.

"g-good…night…N-Naruto-sama…" she said sleepily before drifting off once more, deciding to join her Naruto fell asleep also.

* * *

He stretched outwardly in his bed before finding he was somewhat restricted, looking downwards he saw Haku, still clinging to his waist, he smiled before noting that he had to get out of bed. Carefully he pulled her arms from around him and softly rest them on the bed, getting up he was about to begin his 'hospital chores' before he heard her.

"N-noo…" she whimpered while still asleep.  
"Shhhh…I'll be back I promise." He whispered too her before leaving the room, shutting the door behind him as quietly as possible.

Naruto sighed; he hoped that Kakashi was at least awake; he hadn't spoken to anyone properly in a couple of days, while walking down the deserted streets of the village his mind shifted into thoughts of Konoha, a deep frown came across his face.  
'Heh, maybe I should just kill the next villager that looks at me funny.' He thought before his eyes widened 'Jeez, where did that come from?' he questioned as he scratched the back of his head, sure he had felt angry at the villagers for the actions but he somewhat understood.

'**Don't worry about it that was just from using my chakra.' **Naruto heard in his mind.  
'Hmm…I seem to have gone crazy.' Naruto thought as he continued his walk.  
'**Idiot, you haven't gone crazy!** **It's me!'** the voice said again.  
'W-Who are you?' Naruto said with hesitation, he was seriously talking to a voice in his mind.  
**'Mary Fuckin' Poppins! Who do you think I am you idiot!?' **the voice yelled in anger.  
'I don't care who the hell you are! You got some nerve talking to me like that in my own mind!'  
'**Hey! Sit your ass down on that bench over there. I didn't wanna see the ugly face of my container just yet but I guess it can't be helped.' **The voice said before Naruto suddenly understood.

'Oh, so you're that lame ass fox that everyone hates me for, what makes you think I wanna meet you?  
You're obviously just going to be another pain in my ass, so why don't you settle down and shut the hell up and lastly you're gunna be in there a long time kyuubi-_chan_cause I don't plan on dying any time soon so you might as well get comfortable.' He ranted in his mind.

The kyuubi winced at this, before answering in a quiet voice that Naruto could barely hear in his mind. **'I'm sorry… I guess I just… please sit down…' **kyuubi said in a sad tone, Naruto let out a sigh and trudged over to the bench.  
'Damn magical foxes in my mind telling me what to do, I'll show them!' Naruto thought before stopping dead in his tracks.  
'Yep, crazy.' He concluded before sitting down on the nearby bench with another sigh.

'**Close your eyes.' **The kyuubi instructed. Naruto was about to argue but instead let out a grumble of annoyance before closing his eyes.  
'**Open them.'**As soon as the order was given Naruto opened his eyes and looked around.

He was in a strange place he had never seen before, the place was barely lit and at first his eyes struggled to make out his surroundings, as he took his first step he heard a splashing sound, looking down to confirm his thoughts he found he was as he thought now standing in murky water which certainly didn't make him any fonder of the place. Looking back up he noticed that his eyes had adjusted to the darkness; the walls seemed to be made out of damaged stone bricks.

Deciding that he would get nowhere just standing there he took a couple of steps forward before seeing that the walls around him seemed to be part of a tunnel system, shrugging it off he continued further down the tunnel, the deeper he went the more flickers of red chakra he saw in the air. 'Damn fox.' He thought as he walked through his new least favourite place in the world.

'**In here.' **He heard and following the sound he picked up his pace and ran towards its location. Before him was a set huge golden bars which seemed to look like a cage or prison cell door, upon further inspection he noticed a strip of paper over the lock, it was simply labelled 'Seal.'

A large orange fox head appeared behind the bars, it's eyes closed as if not wanting to see the blonde, Naruto's eyes widened slightly in the sheer size of the thing, if he was scared he was doing a damn good job of hiding it.  
"Nice place you got here." Naruto mocked which caused the fox to frown  
"**You do know this is your mindscape right? The fact it looks like crap is your fault**" The fox replied, still having its eyes closed, not caring to look at its jailer.  
"I can't take this seriously. I'm talking to a giant fox in my mind which apparently is some form of sewer." Naruto said in a bored tone before a poof of smoke filled the cage.

In place of the fox was a girl who looked no older than fifteen, her crimson hair was wild and ended at the small of her back, atop of her head were a pair of orange fox ears which matched the whiskers on her heart shaped face. She wore an open jacket which had a high collar and a single shirt like pocket on the left side, an exact replica of the jacket Naruto was currently wearing except her version was blood red with a black trim, like him she also wore no clothing under the jacket but did have bandages wrapped around the more eye catching area of her chest. The rest of her outfit consisted of tight black thigh length shorts which had a dark red trim, the opposite to her jacket, too finish the outfit she wore pair of black standard ninja sandals and the only accessory she was wearing was the circular neck chain similar to Naruto's.

She opened her eyes and began speaking before she turned to look at her jailer  
'**I figured it would be easier for you to t-talk t-to…" **She said as she stuttered on her last words when she looked at him, she then turned away quickly with a blush, her dazzling red eyes now looking towards the floor. Naruto had also blushed before looking away, which of course increased the awkwardness by at least tenfold.

"I u-uhm… what were we talking about?" he said as he scratched his blonde locks nervously, still looking down at the floor she replied.  
**"I-I…we were…oh…yeah, I mean. My chakra! That was it; it made you think negative thoughts." **The kyuubi said before looking back towards Naruto.  
"Oh well I guess that explains it then!" he said before nervously chuckling and scratching his head, he was sure if he kept clawing at it so frantically that he would be soon sporting a bald patch.  
**"I'm sorry you know!" **she blurted out as he no longer had a purpose to stay.  
"Uh…What?" He asked with a tilt of his head showing his confusion, this act only made the kyuubi blush harder.  
**  
"I** **didn't want to attack the village, something drew me to the village on October tenth, I felt like I needed to be there, as if something very important was happening, but before I reached the village one of those Uchiha brats appeared before me and using those damn eyes he sent me on a rampage."**  
**"If it wasn't for me… then you could of have had a normal life…" **she said now staring at her feet as tears threatened to form.

Naruto approached the bars of the cage before closing his eyes and after a few moments of concentration the bars were gone, and were replaced with a small golden bracelet around the Kyuubi's wrist. Walking closer to her he caught her attention and she looked up at him, seeing that the bars where gone her eyes became wide.

"Who wants to be normal?" He said with a foxy smile, catching him completely off-guard she launched herself at him before squeezing him gently in her arms, regaining his composure he nervously wrapped his arms around her and brought her head against his chest, she nuzzled against it almost instantly and he felt a warm liquid dripping down his bare chest.

**"I-I'm sorry…**" she chanted over and over until he stopped her with a soft tone  
"You said you didn't want to attack the village, it wasn't your fault." She shook her head against his chest.  
"**It's my fault you were lonely for so long!" **she argued but felt the grip around her tighten slightly.  
"You must have been pretty lonely in here yourself." He said which earned a nod against his chest.  
"Why didn't you talk to me sooner?" He asked in a gentle voice.  
**"I was only able to because you used my chakra." **She said before sniffing and wiping her eyes.

"Well I guess I should introduce myself, I'm Naruto Uzumaki or Namikaze…" He said before stroking his chin in thought.  
"I guess I should stick to Uzumaki. What's your name? I'm guessing it isn't just 'Kyuubi'" Naruto said as she nodded and pulled away from him to look at him.  
**"My name is Yuuki…but I don't have a surname." **She said before looking a little sad at not having a surname.

Naruto began stroking his chin letting out an 'hmm' sound as he did so.  
"Yuuki Uzumaki…no… Uzumaki Yuuki…" He thought out loud before shaking his head.  
"Oh! I know, Yuuki Namikaze!" He announced with a face splitting grin, Yuuki just blushed intensely at this and looked away.  
**"T-thank you…"**she muttered into his chest and in response he just chuckled before frowning, he really didn't like this place. Closing his eyes in concentration again he thought of a new place for Yuuki to live.

He opened his eyes to reveal his creation, a small, traditional Japanese style house had appeared before them, close by was a small lake that dazzled in the 'sun' showing just how clear it was, the area nearby it was a grassy plain with a surrounding forest, to Naruto it looked comfortable, cosy and safe and somehow reminded him of the clearing that he and Hinata would often visit.

"Well what do you think?!" He asked excited to hear her response, she pulled away from his chest to marvel in her surroundings.  
**"I-It's beautiful…" **she said which made the smile on his face grow even wider.  
**"Although I am comparing it to the sewers that I was living in all these years, I mean…never mind,  
I love it…thank you." **She said before smiling back at him. He had only been there such a short time and had done so much for her, even after she caused his life to be a living hell.

"Uhm…not that i don't want to stay or anything…but I've kinda gotta check on Kakashi-sensei…you know… so he doesn't die…" Naruto said awkwardly but Yuuki nodded in understanding.  
**"You'll visit won't you?!"** she asked desperately but Naruto just nodded.  
"Will you still be able to talk into my mind?" He asked and this time he was the one on the receiving end of a nod.  
**"Close your eyes."** She said softly, he did as he was asked and then suddenly he heard a voice in his head.  
'**Open them.'**When he did as he was told he found himself sitting on the bench as if nothing had ever happened, remembering his task he hurried towards Tazuna's house.

* * *

He slid open the door and headed straight to Kakashi's room, but before he entered he heard a cough. "Naruto? Is that you out there?" The voice called out, Naruto just slid open the door to his room and a smile decorated his face.  
"Good to see you're awake Kakashi-sensei, I just came over to change your food drip but seeing as you're up I guess you'd like something proper to eat." He said with a foxy grin.

"Well as long as it's not ramen then sure." Kakashi answered in a slightly bored tone, he wasn't exactly excited to have to eat a meal that Naruto would put together.  
"Are you allergic to anything Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto said barely hiding his mischievous smirk  
"Why? ..." Kakashi said while glaring at the blonde.  
"Well so I don't put it your food… oh well if you don't want to trust me I guess I'll just have to _hope _that I don't poison you." He said before chuckling and walking out of the room, leaving Kakashi too sigh and pray that he didn't die from whatever Naruto was going to make him.

Walking into the kitchen Naruto went into chef mode and started talking to himself, like all good chefs did, as if documenting a cooking show.  
"Hmmm…well I did save their town, I guess Tazuna won't mind if I use some ingredients."  
Pulling out the necessary ingredients and began preparing a chicken curry, every now and again commenting on his actions which caused Yuuki to chuckle in his mind.

'**Voila! Ready to serve!**' she said in a mocking tone, Naruto just smiled before adding some finishing touches to the meal, after he was satisfied he placed the plates on a plastic tray before walking into Kakashi's room.

"Wow…that actually smells pretty good!" Kakashi commented causing Naruto to frown.  
"You underestimate my abilities Kakashi-sensei!" He announced before placing the plate on Kakashi's lap, then he moved behind him to help him sit up, after he was sat up Naruto placed a few pillows behind him to keep him upright while he ate.

"Oh you're having some too; at least I don't have to worry about being poisoned then." Kakashi said with an eye smile, Naruto sighed.  
"Like I'd make something this good and not have any myself." Naruto said before tucking into his meal before looking up at Kakashi who was about to take his first bite.

Kakashi closed his eyes and with low expectations placed the food in his mouth, Naruto was now staring at him with high hopes that he would like it, Kakashi's eyes shot open.  
"Wow Naruto! This is really good!" Kakashi declared before wolfing down his food just like Naruto was.

After the he had finished the meal the jonin let out a content sigh that signified he had enjoyed the meal. "Thanks Naruto, it seems I underestimated your cooking skills after all." He said before giving the blonde an eye smile.  
"Oh?" Naruto asked "Well I'm glad you didn't mind the rat poison I put in your food." Naruto said barely holding a straight face; Kakashi's smile fell completely and looked shocked.  
"Y-You what?" He asked questioning if he heard correctly, Naruto just burst out into laughter at this point, even Yuuki joined in upon seeing Kakashi's reaction.  
"The look on your face!" He said in between laughing.

Kakashi just sighed with a frown upon his face.  
"Shouldn't you be at the hospital?!" he asked slightly annoyed at the blonde's laughter.  
"Crap! You're right! I'll Cya later Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto said before sprinting to the door and rushing to the hospital, hoping that Haku had not gone into some insane panic by now.

* * *

Opening the door to Haku's room still in a complete rush he somewhat panicked when he saw her panting for breath, she turned to look at him before her eyes widened in joy.  
"Naruto-sama! You're back! Thank goodness!" She exclaimed with a smile.  
"I thought you'd trust me a little more than that." Naruto said with in mock hurt,  
"I just…" she started but Naruto soon interrupted, changing the subject.  
"How are you feeling Haku-chan?" he asked casually, the honorific causing Haku to blush slightly before answering. "A lot better, thank you Naruto-sama, although I still feel a little tired, I expect I should recover soon."

Naruto scratched his head "That's good to hear, but please don't call me Naruto-sama…" he whined  
"But I must! You saved my life…and even helped me while I have been recovering… you gave me a new purpose in life, to be more than just a tool." She replied, Naruto sighed which didn't go unnoticed by Haku.  
"Have I disappointed you Naruto-sama?" She said sadly, Naruto just shook his head.  
"It's alright Haku-chan, I didn't mean to upset you…" he said as he plopped down on the bed next to her and pulled her into a hug.  
"You don't have to act so formal around me, that's all." He said softly as she leaned into the hug, and rested her head on his shoulder."Okay…I'll try my best, Naruto-sa… Naruto-kun." She said, Naruto chuckled at this  
"Try to get some rest, I'm sure you'll be better in no time Haku-chan." After he said this she nodded and closed her eyes.

**"Oi! Why don't you call **_**me**_** Yuuki-chan?!" **Asked an angry kyuubi inside Naruto's mind.  
'I-I…um…Yuuki-chan…' He whined in his thoughts, feeling her blush he thought he had gotten away.  
**"Too late for that Naruto-teme!" **she snapped.  
"Hmph… and to think I was going to come visit you when Haku-chan had fallen asleep, but I guess Yuuki-chan doesn't want me around…" he said with a smirk.  
**"Naruto-kun…"** Yuuki said deciding it was her turn to whine, Naruto just chuckled  
'Too late! I'm sure you'll manage without me…" he replied, causing her to whimper  
**"Without you? …**" she questioned quietly which caused Naruto to grin.  
'I'm totally going to sleep since you called me Naruto-teme." He said before closing his eyes, a few minutes later Yuuki had formed an acceptable excuse.

**"Yeah well!…wait…" **she heard the sounds of light snoring.  
"**Naruto-teme!" **she shouted angrily in his mind before huffing and storming into 'her' house.  
**"I hope he likes dreaming about Gai's spandex!" **she shouted before casting a genjutsu and waiting for effect. Naruto awoken and let out a blood curdling scream that could be heard across all of the elemental nations.**  
"Maybe I was too hard on him after all…"**she thought out loud.

* * *

**Author's Notes: Well that about sums up the wave arc, bring on the exams!  
****I apologize for any scarring thoughts that may have been caused due to the mentioning of Gai's spandex. Also sorry It took a little longer for me to release but it over double the usual chapter size so hopefully that makes up for it.**

**Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Thank you to all those who have reviewed, added to favourites and are following the story!**


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

**Chapter 13: Good to be home.  
**

* * *

Naruto was jumping from branch to branch in usual shinobi fashion; however this time it was in perfect silence, the blonde was thankful for this, for a reason he didn't know, even Yuuki was quiet and hadn't spoken to him all day. '_She's probably just asleep._' Naruto thought to himself, still, something had been troubling ever since he woke up a few days ago though he couldn't quite identify what it was.

Naruto glanced over to Haku, who gave him an expecting smile before he turned away again, she hadn't spoken unless spoken too first and well, Kakashi was being Kakashi, used to travelling alone on his solo missions as an ANBU meant that like Haku, he would usually only speak when spoken to, usually deep in thought much like Naruto was at this moment in time.

There it was again, that strange feeling. The best he could describe it as was the feeling that 'something was missing.' He had pinned it down to being away from the village and his few friends for so long, homesickness perhaps, but that didn't seem to be the case.

'_Well I could think about this all the way home, but I doubt I'd find the answer._' Naruto mused before letting out a sigh of defeat, which didn't go unnoticed by his jonin sensei.  
"My, my Naruto I'm disappointed in you, I expected you to be as talkative as you were on the way here." Kakashi said with an eye smile, however something familiar replaced the 'missing' feeling that Naruto had.

That feeling that made his overly large grin appear while he said nothing in defence, this time however Kakashi had left him in a position where he was forced to answer or the jonin would soon think that something was wrong with him.  
"I'm just thinking that's all." He said with a more sincere smile, he knew that Kakashi meant no offense by his conversation starter but he never was a fan of the word 'disappointed.'

"What is it that you are thinking of then? Perhaps I could spare you some of my words of wisdom." Kakashi replied in a sage like tone, causing Naruto to snort.  
"It's private, besides I don't need tips on how to be late." Naruto said in a mocking tone which caused the jonin to frown, sure he was late 'now and again' but surely he wasn't _that_ bad.  
"Oh? Is there something that happened between you and Haku that I should know about?" Kakashi asked before grinning towards the now lightly blushing girl.

"Actually there is…" Naruto said causing Haku's blush to turn darker in shade and managed to rope in Kakashi's curiosity.  
"…I decided that I didn't like the idea of Haku becoming a Konoha shinobi." Naruto said in a voice laced with determination, he had made his up his mind, although he would let Haku choose for herself, he would provide her with the option to not join the ranks.

"Such a decision isn't up to you Naruto…besides Haku has a bloodline that could be valuable to the village." Kakashi said in a stern tone, one he rarely used but when he did he was completely serious.  
"Exactly." Naruto stated, catching the one eyed jonin off guard slightly,  
"Oh." He replied in sudden understanding "Then what is it you are thinking of?" he asked in his usual calm voice, Naruto scratched the back of his neck; he might as well explain his plan.

"Simple, Haku can just be named as a civilian that was captured by Zabuza but we managed to save her, ever since then she had wanted to return to Konoha. However I want Haku-chan to have the option to have the civilian lifestyle or to join the ranks of the leaf, but I know how greedy those councillors can be, especially when it comes to bloodlines." Naruto explained as the silver haired man nodded, it seemed fair after all seeing as Haku had been forced into the life of a shinobi by Zabuza.

"If Naruto-sama wishes that I do not join the ninja ranks, then I shall not join them." Haku said with a smile, Naruto just sighed, he didn't do formal.  
"Haku-chan, I want you to have the choice, don't just do it because I said so." He whined hoping that the girl would learn to value her own opinion sometime soon; she nodded to him before speaking again.  
"I would enjoy the civilian lifestyle I think…it would give me a lot of free time; however I would still like to practice my abilities, it would also allow me to guard Naruto-sa—Naruto-kun without the fear of being sent away on a mission without him." After speaking she looked towards Naruto nervously hoping that she did as she was asked.

Naruto gave her a warm smile which made her nervousness melt away, "That was much better Haku-chan, what do you think Kakashi-sensei?" the blonde said as he turned to get the opinion of the jonin.  
"Haku has made her decision, the council can't force her to become a ninja, well they probably could…actually it may be better if we don't mention Haku in our report." Kakashi said earning a nod from the blonde, the three acknowledged that the conversation was over and sped up a little as they headed towards Konoha.

* * *

Naruto sighed with content as he walked down the village streets, after reporting to the Hokage he was now heading towards his apartment with Haku, he only hoped the his plans went as well as he thought they would. '_Actually…I hope they go alot better than what I think they will._'  
He turned his head looking to Haku, he almost forgotten about her, but now saw that she looked a little nervous.

He placed his hand on her shoulder which made her jump out of her thoughts at the sudden touch.  
"You okay?" Naruto asked with a smile, Haku just nodded nervously with a weak smile  
"You would tell me if anything was wrong right? I don't want you thinking you can't tell me things." Naruto said softly as he squeezed her shoulder gently.  
"I-It's nothing…I just, I haven't been in a hidden village in a long time." She said as the two began walking up the stairs to Naruto's apartment.

Upon reaching the top, Naruto opened the door and allowed Haku to enter first, what surprised him though was that his broken window had actually been fixed that saved him a job at least.  
"I know it's not much but it's better than nothing." Naruto said with a chuckle, Haku just smiled  
"Will you be living here as well Naruto-kun?" she asked happy with the thought, but Naruto itched the back of his neck.  
"Maybe, it depends on how things work out." He said in a pained tone, it wasn't nice to live alone.  
"I see, well I hope they do work out Naruto-kun." She said with a smile before unpacking her things, into the still empty cupboards.  
"Make yourself at home Haku-chan, I just have a few things I need to do, I'll be back later!" he called before closing the door behind him, Haku just shrugged and hummed a pleasant tune while unpacking her things.

* * *

When Naruto reached the bottom of the stairs he was torn between the two, though he figured that talking to Sasuke may take longer than his other option, so he took to the rooftops, it was around one in the afternoon and due to the warning of 'don't visit the dango shop until after one' that Kakashi had given him, Naruto had learnt that the person he was looking for would be heading towards a certain forest.

Making things easier on himself Naruto blurred across the city in a yellow flash until he came to the dirt path leading to the forest of death, however, walking straight in would be unwise so he used what little tracking knowledge he knew to follow Anko's route, thankful that she never done anything to throw off a tracker because if she had even the most simplest of tricks would have left Naruto unable to follow her.

He saw her lying casually on a tree branch, looking perfectly relaxed, he guessed that she didn't even sense him as she simply didn't expect anyone else to be around. Strangely though ever since Naruto entered the forest he felt something was calling out to him, wanting him to find it, but whatever it was giving him the feeling probably wasn't important, so he soldiered on.  
'_Alright, well here it goes.' _He thought as he looked around for a good spot.  
_'I need to be spotted by her…let her think she in control.' _he reminded himself as he jumped onto a branch which was clearly in her view, he slumped down against the tree, his back to her, making out that he was non-the-wiser that she was even there.

Anko raised an eyebrow before smirking, someone was in _her_ forest, the least she could do was to give them a warm welcome, standing up she jumped down a few branches towards Naruto's tree.  
'_Looks like it's working' _He thought as he tried to keep up his clueless act. Suddenly Anko dropped down; a kunai in her hand was pressed against Naruto's throat.

"Well now, it looks like someone has stumbled into my forest. Hmm, maybe I should use you as an example to keep other people from coming in." She purred in his ear.  
'_Let her think she's in control' _he chanted to himself in his mind, he managed to make his voice waver as he spoke back to her.  
"I-I d-didn't know anyone e-else came here." Naruto said weakly which made Anko immediately thought he was putty in her hands, leaning in closer to his ear; he could feel her breath against it.

"I might let you live after all…but I can't promise anything." She whispered seductively into his ear before pulling the kunai away from his neck and 'accidently' cutting his cheek.  
"Oops, let me clean that up for you." She said before getting a taste of his blood, the action made Naruto shiver slightly making her feel all the more in control.  
She slumped down beside him and turned her head to face him.  
"So tell me brat, what are you doing in my forest?" She asked in a slightly irritated tone, this was her place to get away from it all.

"W-Well, the villagers don't exactly love me…and I heard those saying lots of harsh things about a woman, something about a snake, I figured she would be able to understand what it's like, so I wanted to meet her, I heard a villager say she visits the forest of death a lot." Naruto said as he mixed truth with lies to make his reasoning more convincing. He sensed Anko tense up at the mention of the term 'snake woman' and knew that he had hit a nerve.

"Yeah well here I am, so now you can get outta here before I change my mind." Anko snapped but to her surprise the blonde turned to her with a smile, no fear of her in his eyes what-so-ever, he looked somewhat hopeful, and that scared her.  
"W-What is it?!" She yelled and dropping his act he decided he had loosened her up enough for him to talk to her properly.

"Well first of all I'm sorry I tricked you into thinking I didn't know you were here, but it's the only we'd be able to talk properly." He said earning a snort from her.  
"I know why you come here." He stated which made her eyes widen slightly before a frown came across her features but before she could give him a piece of her mind he continued talking.  
"I could tell you everything…but you wouldn't trust me, you've been hurt by someone you trusted so I understand." He said causing her to look at the tree branch below them and clench her fists with anger.

She felt a soft hand upon her shoulder and little by little her anger was slipping away, not even Kurenai ever tried to comfort her physically in fear that she'd get snapped at.  
"It's okay to be angry." He said softly causing her to almost tear up, but suddenly she felt a tug at her collar and immediately shoved his hand away from her.  
"What the hell do you think you're doing!?" She yelled at him in panic, she almost fell for his soft touch, she almost found herself trusting his words.

"Checking which side _it_ is on." He said quietly, hoping not to enrage her, she gritted her teeth in anger.  
"You hate that mark right? I just need to see what it looks like." He spoke, before slowly raising his hand again, this time though he made sure it was in her line of sight.  
"What do you mean? What does it matter if I hate it or not?!" She asked, confused of how just a minute ago she was sat comfortably in her tree like always, and now she was here being reminded of a lot of nasty memories.

"Well if you hate it…then you will allow me to remove it." He said softly trying not to startle her, Anko's eyes widened and a small flicker of hope shot through them before it was crushed, she knew better than to get her hopes up.  
"Oh yeah, you expect me to believe that? Even if you could, what would you want in return?" She asked still unconvinced.

"Well I've been training in Fuinjutsu for around 6 years now, and I can promise you I can take that thing off, hopefully without hurting you but I'll make sure _he _doesn'tknow." Naruto said still trying to be as gentle as possible.  
"In return…"  
"Oh great here it comes." She interrupted which caused him to chuckle  
"You think this is funny?!" She yelled with anger.  
"Sorry, sorry, I thought about teasing you but that wouldn't be very nice." He let out a sigh,  
"All I ask for in return is your trust, then I can tell you everything I know and who knows I might even be able to help you with your pain a little, I hate seeing people suffering the same pain as I did." He said before easing his hand back on to her shoulder before giving it a squeeze, she looked in his eyes and saw honesty and determination, '_can he really get rid of the seal?_' she thought.

"Fine, screw me over and you'll die before you can blink." She snarled, Naruto was thought about retaliating but figured her anger was to mask her fear.  
"Don't worry…now can I see _it_?" he asked, answering without words she tugged on her collar to reveal her cursed seal, and Naruto could see the area around it was a little sore.

He gentle brushed over it with his thumb causing her to wince and hiss in pain. "Sorry." He said while still examining the seal, looking for anymore sore area's around it, happy with his examination he brought his now green glowing hands to her neck.  
"You dumbass, like that will get rid of it!" she said thinking that she had been taken for a fool.  
"Relax, the area around the seal is a little sore that's all, I don't want to hurt you." He said while still focusing on his healing, she felt a slight pang of guilt for snapping at him but did nothing about it.

"There, I'm going to brush my thumb over it again alright? Let me know if it still hurts." He said talking her through his actions, she gave a nod and he gently brushed over the mark with his thumb.  
"I-It doesn't hurt." She said a little surprised.  
"Good, now I know you're still suspicious so I'm going to talk you through what I'm doing, if you have any questions just ask I want you to feel comfortable after all." He spoke like a doctor about to begin a procedure.

"Fine I've got a question, why are you doing all of this?" She asked with that pained look in her eyes.  
"Stop it. Stop thinking that you don't deserve help, no one deserves to suffer, just because the village is too blind to see you're hurting doesn't mean I am too." He said in a stern voice, which caused Anko to lower her head like a kicked puppy.  
"It's alright to hurt. It doesn't make you weak, you're strong, stronger than most, definitely stronger than _he _is_._" He spoke, this time switching back to his gentle tone, calming her and her suspicions.

"Okay, I'm going to tear your collar a little so it doesn't get in the way." He said before doing the action he spoke of, tearing it away he now had a clear view of the seal, he rolled out a piece of sealing paper in front of her and brought out his brush and vial of ink.

"This tag that I'm about to make is just a pain suppressor, it won't affect the procedure but it might make the area around your neck feel really numb, but once I pull it off again it'll be fine." He said while looking up at her to see if she was following, he got a nod from her and he finished of his seal.  
"This might feel a little cold at first." He said with a chuckle as he placed the tag close to the area of the seal and Anko let out a gasp at just how cold it was.

"Alright while that is numbing the area I'm going to be making the next set of tags, these tags while 'raise' the cursed seal so to speak." He said hoping that he explained it right, but apparently not.  
"Raise it?" she asked hoping for a more in depth explanation.  
"Well, you see seals are made up of a lot of levels, yours is a six layered seal, meaning I'll be using six tags, the tags will basically lift one layer away, hmm how to explain it." He wondered.

"Ah! Okay hold out your palm." He said and she reluctantly obeyed his command while he rummaged in his backpack for something. Pulling out a sandwich from the bag, she gave him a confused look especially when he placed it on her outstretched hand.

"Okay, so the sandwich is made up of four layers: bread, salad, ham and another slice of bread. I know this sounds crazy but try to follow me." He said letting out a chuckle at his ridiculous means of explaining such a complex topic.

"If the sandwich is made of four layers, and I pull away the top piece of bread what happens?" he asked.  
"Uhm, it only has three layers?" Anko asked slightly understanding what he was talking about,  
"Right! I've lifted away a layer, much like the tags will do to your seal." He said happily.  
"Well, that was a strange way of explaining it, but I guess it worked so whatever." She said with a smirk before he pulled the rest of the 'layers' from her hand, before she could brush of the crumbs he stopped her for another crazy explanation.

"See those crumbs? Well I guess they can be used to explain the third step. After the layers have been lifted, there will still be remains of the seal but I'll talk you through that when we get there, you just tell me when your neck is feeling numb" Naruto said before working on the last seal but suddenly he looked up with a panicked look.

"I almost forgot! Is your cursed seal level one or level two?" he asked  
"level two…" she muttered guessing at what was coming next, Naruto nodded but decided to be blunt.  
"You're going to have to transform into that form. I'll make sure _he_ doesn't know you're using it, don't worry." Naruto said doing his best to relax her.  
"There's a problem…I can't control it." She said quietly but Naruto just nodded and started creating another seal, she looked at it curiously before he looked up at her to explain  
"Nothing special about this one, just a paralysis seal." He said with a grin, which caused her to snort at how easy he read her thoughts.  
"Uhh…when we're done with all this…would you mind… I mean, teaching me how to do this kinda stuff?" She asked nervously while rubbing her wrist.  
"No, I'm not going to teach you Fuinjutsu." He stated causing her to look disheartened,  
"Oh…sorry, I didn't mean too –"She started before being interrupted by a chuckle  
"Sorry, I can see that must have sounded bad, I'm still not great at getting across what I mean.  
What I meant was that, as a 'sensei' figure you would unknowingly trust me less, due to what happened." He said using his soft tone.

"Wow I must be really fucked up after all." She said before showing a fake smirk that Naruto easily saw through, he shook his head a few times denying her statement before speaking

"It's not your fault, but I can _help_you with it instead of teaching you it, no one helped me with it so it is possible to learn on your own, you can learn it when I practice it, that way I'll be able to help you and you can use my scrolls and I'll let you borrow them. Oh you can take the 'learning diary' I made if you like, I find those help more than trying to learn from text books." He flashed a happy grin as she once again was confused by the idea of someone helping her so much for nothing in return.

"Thanks…I'd like that." She stated before she blinked "Oh, my neck is numb now." She said with a slight smirk, Naruto gave her a nod before placing the six small seal tags around their target, completely surrounding it.  
"This is gunna feel really weird, put your hands on my shoulders when the strange feeling starts then squeeze as hard as you need, it will make the feeling go away." He explained, she nodded and hesitantly placed her hands his shoulders.

"Mwahahaha! You've fell for my evil plan! Now I'll activate the third level of the cursed seal!" Naruto said in serious tone and the grip on his shoulders tightened.  
"There, now all of your suspicions were suddenly realised, they were keeping you on edge because you expected something bad to happen; now you'll be a little more relaxed, sorry I had to do that." He said softly, hoping that it wasn't too bad for her.  
"Damn brat! You had me worried!" she snapped before chuckling at believing him.

"Alright Anko, you're going to have to activate level 2 for me, don't worry, I won't let it control you." He said with confidence, she took her hands of his shoulders and the seal began to stir.  
"Okay, I'm going to make sure _he _doesn't know." He explained as his thumb brushed over the marking that was labelled 'transmit' and he forced chakra into his thumb.  
"**Supress!**" As he said so a small amount of chakra trickled out from his thumb and the symbol glowed blue before fading back to black.

The black markings then spread across Anko's body before completely taking over and level two was activated, her hair sprung free from being tied up and grew to the small of her back, it changed from dark purple to a pale silver with highlights of a dark purple dotted around, it was now spikey and wild with ivory like horns sticking out from her either side of her head. But Naruto knew it as a normal thing for the transformation process; her skin became a dark tanned colour and black markings similar to the Inuzuka's appeared on her face.

"Hurry…I-I d-don't know if I can stay in control much longer." She struggled through gritted teeth but suddenly felt a pair of hands encircle one of hers. A bolt of chakra flowed across her and the paralysis seal was activated, although she was still losing control.

"It's okay, you don't have to be alone, and I'm here now. I'll be your friend; you don't have to be alone, It's okay you don't have to get revenge, I don't blame you, it's not your fault, It's okay, I blame _him_, you do deserve to be happy, I don't fear you, it's okay." Naruto chanted in a spell like manner, calling out to her doubts and insecurities and removing them.

Anko let out a breath she didn't know that she was holding in; she no longer felt at war with herself, she felt strangely calm. 'Now to get rid of level 2.' Naruto thought.  
"You know your transformation shows the true image of your soul." He said softly which caused her to go wide eyed. "T-This Is what my soul looks like…this ugly transformation? …" she stuttered.  
"Ugly? I think it looks awesome! You look like you can kick some serious ass!" he said enthusiastically which shocked her and a smile found its way to her lips.  
"But, it's not your _true _soul, but rather how it looked when you 'died' thanks to those tablets bringing out all of your negativity to speed up the process and make you loyal." He said with a smile before continuing.

"Would you like to see your souls real image?" he asked getting a slow nod as an answer, he placed two fingers on her forehead. "**Kai!**" after he had released the chakra bringing forth her negative emotions she began to transform again, her dark tan receded into a slightly paler than normal tone. The wild hair she had smoothed out into flowing silky smooth locks which were a very faint purple- almost white in colour and golden runic symbols were visible down her forearms. Taking of his Hitai ate, he showed her, her reflection and she let out a gasp.

"I like this version much better too." He said with a smile but suddenly the gold markings started to glow before fading completely, her hair receded in length and became its usual colour and her skin transformed back to his normal shade.  
"What happened?!" she asked in shock but Naruto's grin comforted her somewhat.  
"You've just accepted who you are, and removed level 2 of the cursed seal." He said with a proud grin, she smirked before looking somewhat saddened.  
"D-Did you mean all of those things you said? … You know when you helped me control it?" she asked in the volume just above a whisper.

"Of course I did, I would never had said them if I didn't." Naruto said before giving her a warm smile  
"Now let's get that thing of you shall we?" Anko nodded and put her hands on his shoulders, Naruto flipped through hand seals before placing his palm over the seal.

**"Ascension!" **as he named his jutsu the raising tags flared to life with a blue glow before separate layers of the seal crawled into them and the grip on Naruto's shoulders got a lot tighter, now there was just the core remains of the seal left. Naruto bit his thumb and blood flowed to the wound, he written several different symbols around the remains.

"Don't worry; this will just remove the remains of the seal. Its gunna hurt." Naruto said as crouched so that Anko's head was hovering above his shoulder, he gently pressed against the back of her head moving her closer to it, then pressed his chakra infused palm on to the seal and began the process of removing it.

"**Fuinjutsu: Redemption of sin!" **he announced as his chakra flowed through the cursed seal, as soon as the seal started to glow blue he immediately dragged his hand away and the seal slowly started crawling along his chakra strings, but without being bonded with a body it became unstable and slowly but surely the chakra strings were removing the seal.

Anko had understood why Naruto moved his shoulder close to her head, she bit down as hard as she could in an effort to ease the pain and Naruto was calmly whispering words of comfort in her ear all the while. She couldn't imagine the amount of pain it would bring if he hadn't used the numbing tag beforehand.

With one final pull the strings ripped away the core of the seal, Naruto ended the jutsu and the chakra was released from his fingertips, the fragments of the seal that still remained within the chakra dissipated, she was finally free of the curse.

She pulled away from his shoulder, licking the blood before it started to flow down his body, her breathing was ragged and she felt an arm around her pull her against him while he sat back against the tree, his hand started to glow and he soon closed up his bite wound although the fang marks would be there a little while longer.

"Is…it…gone? ...Did…it…work?" she asked through deep breaths, Naruto gave her a foxy grin  
"Is what gone? Oh you mean that rumour of you having a cursed seal?" Naruto said with a smirk, she pulled away from him and gave him a puzzled look. "Rumour?" She asked, not understanding.  
"Well, I don't see any cursed seal, so I guess it was just a rumour after all." He said in a 'matter-of-fact' tone, acting on instinct she felt her neck, searching for the cursed seal, but couldn't find one.

Her eyes widened with joy and a smiled decorated her face as she threatened to squeeze the boy to death, he had done it, just like he said he would, he had freed her from the curse, as well as done so much more along the way.

"A-Anko…can't…breathe!" he coughed out as the woman suddenly released her death hold upon him he took in deep breathes.  
"Sorry Naru-chan, guess I got a little carried away." She said with a teasing smile, Naruto frowned at his new nickname but decided it was time for revenge.  
"It's okay…Anko-baa-chan!" He said before laughing, Anko growled and knocked him over the head  
"At least my nickname for you was cute!" she pouted, she didn't like being called old.

"Hmm, I can't believe you let me seal 'Property of Naruto' on to your neck!" Naruto said before bursting into laughter, Anko's pout turned into a frown as she snapped at him  
"You did what?!" but his laughter just escalated.  
"I knew you'd fall for that!" he said holding his sides, Anko couldn't help but laugh at her own expense, she just hoped Naruto liked snakes.  
"Ahhh! Get it off!" he said as he leapt from branch to branch trying to shake of the snake that Anko had planted on him, she chuckled evilly making it sound almost like a cackle.  
"Get me some dango, I could watch this all day!" she announced.

Naruto soon re-appeared by her side and sat down next to her, becoming a little more serious,  
"I should go now, I have some where I need to be." He said softly not wanting to upset her,  
"'Oh and where is it that would possibly be better than being here with me?" Anko said again sporting a pout.  
"To be honest I'd much rather stay here rather than do what I'm about to do." Naruto said with a sigh following it.  
"Oh. What is it that you have to do?" she asked, a little curious of what could be so bad.  
"Well there will be a lot of shouting, let's just leave it at that." He replied making Anko snigger  
"Will your girlfriend be jealous of spending so much time with your precious Anko-sama?" She teased causing Naruto to blush.  
"I don't have a girlfriend…" he snapped "If you must know I have to talk to Sasuke-nii about living arrangements." Sensing the tone Anko just nodded and didn't pry any longer.  
"Come on, let's go back, I need to report to the Hokage since I've had my seal removed."  
"No!" Naruto shot out "You can't tell him that it was me!" he declared making her frown in confusion.  
"Why not?" she asked simply, Naruto sighed then stopped jumping from branch to branch,  
"If you tell him I know Fuinjutsu he'll be even more suspicious of me than he already is! Jiji isn't a bad man but he worries about the village all of the time and usually I'm the one who gets screwed over because of it!" Naruto announced determined not to let her tell him, Anko just hopped over to his branch and let an arm loosely fall over his shoulders.

"If you don't want me to tell him then I won't, you are my friend after all, right Naru-chan?" Anko said with a smirk, Naruto smiled in relief before he had a mischievous grin cross his face.  
"Wanna try a faster way to the village?" He said grabbing a hold of her shoulders gently.  
"A faster way?" she asked confused before suddenly being transported at great speed and reappearing outside of the village in a yellow flash.  
"Hey what happened to all the forest?" she asked innocently and Naruto just chucked before pulling her along into the village by her wrist.

* * *

About to head home Anko turned to Naruto and gave him another crushing hug, before chuckling softly. "You don't know how much what you've done for me today means to me Naru-chan, thanks." She said as she pulled away and smiled at him, though he had a sincere smile on his face that said he was happy to help, before he was tackled to the ground that is.

He looked up and the first thing he saw was pink hair pressed against his chest and was on the end of another bone crushing hug.  
"S-Sakura…chan." He muttered causing her to ease up a little, but not much, he wouldn't escape so easily. "Baka! It's not my fault I missed you." She said playfully which caused Anko to smirk and lean over to the two of them.  
"Ohhh? Who is this then Naru-chan? I thought you said you didn't have a girlfriend" she teased causing the two of them to light up like tomatoes, good job Sasuke wasn't around, Naruto whimpered at the jonin,  
"Anko-chan!" but she just laughed at the pair.  
"Well I'll leave you two to it, Bye-Bye!" and with that Anko disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

Embarrassment over, Sakura just went back to pinning Naruto to the floor with a hug, but let out an 'Eep' when she was suddenly picked up.  
"Sorry Sakura-chan, I really have to get home…" He said feeling a little guilty, but the girl just nodded.  
"Well as long as you don't stay away for weeks again I don't mind, I've been so bored I thought I was going to go crazy!" she said, finally releasing the blonde.  
"I'm sure it wasn't _that_ bad! You did train like I said didn't you?" Naruto asked before gently taking hold of her arm and squeezing her bicep softly.  
"Jeez! You must be a killing machine with arms as strong as these!" Naruto teased causing her to blush but before she could reply they flashed to her house and he had already said his goodbyes before flashing to the Uchiha compound.

* * *

Sasuke was lounging around, it was one of his disliked rest days, becoming less likeable when he spent the time on his own sprawled across the couch, at least training or missions or even walking around the village kept his mind of being alone, he had lost count of how many movies he had watched today, and honestly didn't think he could last through another one, perhaps he should consider such boredom a new torture in his Tsukuyomi collection.

Suddenly he perked up when he heard the door slide open, he was either being robbed, which meant he would get to kick some ass, or Naruto was finally home which meant he would be saved from his crushing boredom. He ran into the hallway and awaited the figure to step inside.

In came Naruto, yet instead of being happy like Sasuke imagined, he looked like someone had just killed his puppy. Naruto sighed and Sasuke became confused, this wasn't the warm welcome home he had intended to give.  
"Naruto?" He asked a little concerned, suddenly Naruto snapped out of his thoughts to see Sasuke standing in the hallway. '_This isn't going to go well._' He thought to himself before letting out another miserable sigh.

"Sasuke can we go in the living room, I need to talk to you about something." Naruto asked in a slightly demanding way "Err…sure Naruto, what's wrong?" Sasuke asked while following the blonde, the two sat down on the couch, Naruto however sat in a formal manner which un-nerved Sasuke.

"I'm glad your finally back _home_ Naruto, is everything alright?" the raven haired boy asked entering protective mode, Naruto winced at the word, although Sasuke put no emphasis on it, it rang out in his mind and made him feel guilty-home.  
"Not exactly…" Naruto finally replied,  
"What do you mean?" Sasuke answered quickly as if wanting to get the information as soon as possible.

Naruto went on to tell Sasuke all about his mission in wave, including how Haku had nearly died but he managed to rescue her and took care of her in the hospital, making sure to label her as 'someone precious' so Sasuke didn't brand her as a potential enemy.

"Why is that bad? You saved her didn't you?" He asked with a reassuring smile, which Naruto didn't share. "Well…that's the thing…she's going to be living in my old apartment." Sasuke just nodded, waiting for him to continue.  
"But I don't want her to have to live alone…so…I think it would be best if I move out…" Naruto said as he slammed his eyes shut not wanting to deal with the response; it was already tearing him apart.  
He opened them after a couple of seconds after realising the room was still silent.

Sasuke looked crushed, "M-Move out…why? ...y-you can't!" Sasuke said weakly as guilt washed over Naruto. "Sasuke…" he said softly but the raven haired boy started furiously shaking his head as a negative.  
"But you've just came back…why do you want to leave? Did I do something wrong?" Sasuke asked sadly but Naruto shook his head,  
"No Sasuke, you didn't do anything wrong… I don't want to move out but I can't just leave her on her own." Naruto hoped he understood but the message didn't seem to hit home.  
"What about me?! You can't just leave me all alone!" Sasuke demanded, not caring how selfish it sounded, Naruto put his hand on his shoulder steadying the raging boy slightly.  
"I know, I don't want to, but she's scared, she hasn't been in a hidden village since when she was in the village hidden in the mist, and they were trying to kill her." Naruto said softly, trying to calm the situation. Sasuke thought clearly for a moment, and then felt very stupid.  
"Why doesn't she just live here?" he asked which made the blonde blink in surprise  
"Are you sure that's okay?" Naruto said somewhat excited by this new 'easy fix' Sasuke nodded quickly at the chance of getting Naruto to stay, the time he had been away had been hell for the Uchiha.  
"Great! I'll go get her!" He cheered and in a flash he was at his apartment. '_I'm starting to abuse the Hiraishin' _Naruto thought to himself as he knocked on the apartment door.

* * *

Haku heard a knock at the door a froze temporarily before calming herself momentarily, she had to remember that people weren't trying to kill her in this hidden village, but still she felt strangely cornered, she slowly crept over to the door, opened it slightly so that she could take a look outside to see who it was. She sighed in relief and opened the door fully upon seeing Naruto and gave him a welcoming smile.

"Hello Naruto-kun, come in." she said with a giggle, the thought of having to give Naruto permission to enter his own apartment was a little bizarre. Naruto stepped inside and sat down on the couch, patting it for her to come and sit.

"How have you been Haku-chan?" he asked with a grin, but the girl wondered on how she should answer. "W-Well…I've been… I've been fine Naruto-kun." She said not wanting to let him know that she had been scared, he leaned over to her as if looking for something, and this made her incredibly nervous and was just waiting to be found out.  
"You can tell me." He said softly causing her resolve to shatter with a soft sigh.  
"I-I was a little afraid…but it's okay now, you're staying here now right? Things worked out they you wanted I hope." She said nervously but Naruto out of habit took her hand in his and started massaging it with his thumb which quickly made her relax.

"That's why I came here, to ask you if you would like to live where I usually live." Naruto said in a slightly more serious tone "Don't worry, it's a huge place! And my nii-chan lives there too, so you won't be lonely even when I'm gone." Naruto said with a grin but Haku seemed somewhat unconvinced.  
"I didn't know you had a brother Naruto-kun." She said a little surprised,  
"Well we're not blood relatives…but we still consider each other brothers." He said with a happy smile, Haku had made up her mind.  
"It's a good job I stopped packing when you left." She said with a giggle, in-directly agreeing to go with him, she felt herself suddenly ensnared by a pair of arms and hesitantly returned the gesture.

Soon Haku had packed up and the two had left the apartment, walking to the Uchiha compound so that Haku could learn its location as well as get to see the sights of Konoha, they were happily walking along making idle conversation when something was about to 'attack' Naruto. Haku jumped in front of the 'enemy' who had her arms thrown out, about to grapple Naruto, Haku then pushed against her forehead so she couldn't move forwards towards Naruto any longer.

"Get away from him!" Haku demanded, the girl snapped her eyes open and took a few nervous steps back. '_Who is that and why is she stopping me from hugging Naruto-kun? …oh no! She can't be!' _the attacker thought to herself  
"Haku-chan…" Naruto said before letting out a nervous chuckle while he rubbed the back of his neck.  
"Yes Naruto-kun? Don't worry no one will do that to you while I'm here" she said with a proud smile, her fears confirmed, the girl couldn't help but try to make an excuse.  
"Ano...I...umm..." She muttered but couldn't bring herself to form words at the heartbreak she had suffered.

"Haku-chan, this is my friend Hinata-chan, she's really nice, you can let her go." He said with a smile  
"I-I'm sorry Naruto-kun! I didn't know!" Haku said almost pleading for forgiveness,  
"Haku-chan, for your punishment…" The blonde said as Haku suddenly bowed her head.  
"Whatever it is I shall accept it." She said in an unwavering tone, which made Naruto roll his eyes at the sight, "...good. Your punishment is…just relax a little would ya'?" he said as he squeezed her sides making her jump out of her skin in shock.  
"S-Sorry…" she said a little embarrassed of her actions but he just waved her off, she let go of Hinata who seized her chance to 'grapple' the blonde.

"I'm glad you're b-back Naruto-kun, I was beginning to worry…" Hinata spoke into his chest as he returned the gesture.  
'**Get away from her Naruto-kun!'** Yuuki shouted from in his head before letting out a low growl  
'_what do you mean? It's just Hinata-chan.' _He answered with his thoughts.  
'**I don't care who she is! She stinks of betrayal!' **Yuuki declared causing Naruto to go wide eyed.  
'_What do you mean '_stinks of betrayal_'!?'_ he asked beginning to worry somewhat, but felt Yuuki shake her head meaning she didn't know.  
'_Maybe it was somebody else close by.'_He thought to himself while still hugging Hinata.

"N-Naruto-kun?" She asked as she looked at him staring into space, Naruto snapped back to life  
"Hinata-chan how is being an ANBU?" He said with a smile trying to ignore Yuuki's comment  
"W-Well…I…um…haven't done anything as an ANBU yet…" she said as she clenched her eyes shut and burrowed further into his chest.  
"She's lying, Naruto-kun." Haku stated to Naruto not caring if Hinata heard or not.  
'**She's lying, god dammit!' **Yuuki warned, just a little slower than Haku.

"Ano… I've had a few meetings… I wouldn't lie to you Naruto-kun!" she said before hugging him tighter as if to stop him from leaving, but she felt his arms still around her.  
"I know Hinata-chan; I'd trust you with my life." He said reassuring her but the sentence made her wince in pain as she thought back to her conversation with Sakura.  
"What was the meeting about Hinata?" Haku asked formally which unnerved the Hyuuga slightly  
"I-It was about the Chuunin exams, me; Naruto-kun and Sasuke-san are going to be on a team."  
"Great! I'll go tell Sasuke-nii the news, thanks Hinata!" Naruto said before un-hugging her and dragging Haku along to the Uchiha compound, he felt a little guilty over the quick get a way but knew Hinata wouldn't mention it.

"Naruto-kun, I do not trust that girl." Haku said softly, trying to warn him for his safety but he shook his head. "Hinata-chan isn't like that; she is kind, gentle and caring, she was one of the only people who ever cared." He said as he slowed his walk to the front entrance of 'his' house.  
"Okay…if you trust her I shall do so also, but please be careful in the exam…" she said with worry laced in her voice, Naruto gave her a comforting smile and slid open the entrance to his home.

* * *

Sasuke came running at the sound of the opening door, he was left alone to suffer watching those movies again he couldn't help but give into his desperation.  
"I'm back! This is Haku-chan" he said and after being introduced Haku bowed  
"Thank you for letting me stay here." She stated in a polite tone that Sasuke wasn't quite used to.  
"Uhh…no problem, I'm Sasuke by the way."  
"I know, Naruto-kun has told me a lot about you" she said with a smile that told him she knew nothing bad about him.

Soon Haku had unpacked her things and the three had spent the night with each other, Haku had to admit she felt at home with the two of them, it was a warm feeling that made her feel welcome and sometimes during the time they were sitting on the couch Naruto would take her hand and stroke it just like he did In the hospital, she couldn't help but relax into it every time he did it. The small action reminded her of just how much he had done for her or continued to do for her, he had saved her. She was soon brought out of her thoughts when Naruto announced that it was time to sleep, Sasuke vanished a little while ago, apparently being tired from some sort of recurring nightmare that only Naruto's presence could fend off.

Naruto led her upstairs and shown her to her room, it was just next to his and had a single bed with fresh blankets laid out ready for her, she appreciated their kindness and began to change into her pyjamas which caused Naruto to charge out of the room, instructing her to let him know when she was done. After changing she called him into the room, after that he stayed with her helping her to relax and sometime later he told her to get some sleep before going to his own room.

Naruto had been asleep two hours before waking up, he was immersed in a conversation with Yuuki who was keeping him company while he watched over Sasuke, he had found himself sleeping less and less, he usually got around six hours on a good day before paranoia kicked in from being constantly monitored, two hours was a little less than normal, although he wasn't tired, he knew that it would have been better to sleep longer.

The sliding of his door caused him to watch the entrance like a hawk, to his relief a sleepy Haku who was rubbing her eyes and moving in a way only possible when only half awake.  
"What's up Haku-chan?" he whispered, she let out a quiet grumble before answering him  
"I cannot sleep Naruto-sama…I mean, Naruto-kun…" she let out a yawn "sorry… did I wake you up?" she asked slightly more awake.

Naruto patted the bed for her to come and sit down, she closed the door behind her and did as he asked, now at a distance where he could whisper he didn't have to worry about waking Sasuke.  
"You didn't wake me up don't worry." He said with a smile "I don't sleep much that's all." He whispered and the girl just nodded before yawning.

Seeing that she was still obviously tired he gently pushed her to lay down and pulled the blanket over the two of them, he pulled her close so that she was using his chest a pillow and began stroking her long straight hair much like at the night he stayed with her in the hospital.

"Goodnight Haku-chan." He whispered as he saw her drifting off to sleep, her eyes closed before she spoke. "Good…night Naruto-kun…thank you…for …bringing me home." Naruto smiled unknowingly.  
It _was _good to be home.

* * *

**Author's notes: No exams just yet! Let me know if you like the chapters being longer like chapter 12 and this one, if not I can make them shorter again, but in these last two a lot of stuff needed to be done.**

**Thanks for all those who have added to favourites, reviewed or added to alerts!**


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